A couple of problems encountered...

[Peter B]

I'm not sure if I've done something wrong, but I have noticed a couple of odd things recently...
Somewhere along the line, as I have been adding new items, I noticed yesterday that my Menu layout had changed from the original one - some extra things show and some have disappeared.

One extra one is "Help" and if I click it, my screen goes to the Screensaver.
The other one is "About Xfce" and if I click that, I am taken back to my Login screen.

I thought I'd been really careful to progress slowly, but obviously I've done something stupid and I have no idea where I have gone wrong. I sort of think it might have been something to do with changing to "English UK" language in Language Support and Regional Formats, but I'm not certain of that.

Anyway, if I wanted to revert to the original Program from the USB I made, how would I do this, please?
My laptop is currently dual boot between Windows XP Pro and Linux Lite, so I wondered if I could start over again and be more careful - but I don't want to have to reinstall Windows or encounter MBR problems.
If  there is a simple way of just overwriting my current Linux installation with the original from my USB, could someone help, please?

 

[valtam]

You can simply reinstall and choose the right options during the install eg.language etc and you won't mess up your mbr and you won't have to install windows. Just do exactly as you did the first time, only choose the right options this time

[Peter B]

Hi Valtam
Thank you for your advice, sorry for being thick - you mean boot from USB, then choose "install alongside windows" as though I didn't have Linux already installed?
Originally, I thought I had chosen all the right options - I was careful to update things one item at a time rather than do too much at once.
I just had this nagging feeling that choosing "English UK" as my preferred setting was the cause of the problems - is there any reason that this  might be the culprit, or am I being paranoid?

[gold_finger]

I just had this nagging feeling that choosing "English UK" as my preferred setting was the cause of the problems - is there any reason that this  might be the culprit, or am I being paranoid?

Hard to tell if that was problem or not.  May have been something else that recently installed/updated.  I'm not on Linux Lite machine right now so not sure what log files are there, but maybe one of them may provide clues as to what may have caused problem.  If you want to try searching for possible causes before resorting to re-install, maybe you could post the output from one or more log files to a pastebin site for us to look at.

Navigate to your /var/log directory and open the "dpkg.log" file with a text editor.  Copy/Paste the contents of file into site like this:  http://pastebin.ca/.  It will return a url that you can be used to see what you've posted -- copy that link and post it back here to forum.  Look for any log file that may be related to saving info on "updates" and paste that one as well if it exists.

Tell us as specifically as you can remember "when" you first noticed the problem so we know approximately what time frame in the logs to look at.

Hi Valtam
Thank you for your advice, sorry for being thick - you mean boot from USB, then choose "install alongside windows" as though I didn't have Linux already installed?

No.  This time you will need to select "Something else" option which will bring you to a page showing partitions of the drive.  On that page you need to select the Linux Lite partition(s) and install over what's there.  So you need to know which partitions are which ahead of time.  (Backup/Copy any files you want to keep before re-installing.)

To find that out, boot into your already installed LL, open a terminal and enter this:

Code:

lsblk

The lines that show something under the "MOUNTPOINT" heading are your LL partitions.  If you did a standard install before, you will only see one for "/" and one for "SWAP".  If you later added some kind of data partition to share b/w LL and Windows, that may show as well but is NOT one that you should install over.  For example, here is output from machine I'm on right now:

Code:

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 298.1G  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0    25G  0 part /
├─sda2   8:2    0     1K  0 part
└─sda3   8:3    0 223.1G  0 part /mnt/DATA
sdb      8:16   0 596.2G  0 disk
├─sdb1   8:17   0     9G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sdb2   8:18   0   230G  0 part
├─sdb3   8:19   0     1K  0 part
├─sdb5   8:21   0    40G  0 part /mnt/ISOs
├─sdb6   8:22   0    40G  0 part
└─sdb7   8:23   0   200G  0 part /mnt/VBoxHDs
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom 

The ones showing mount points under "/mnt" are data partitions I added -- they would NOT be replaced during a re-installation of the system.  (If you happen to have a USB stick or drive attached to computer when running lsblk command, that will probably show up with mount point under /media/yourusername -- ignore those during re-installation.)

Chances are you just have LL partitions for "/" (root) and "swap".  "Swap" you can leave as it is -- no need to change anything there.  After "Something else" selected in installer, on next page just click to highlight the partition that corresponds to your "/" partition, then click the "Change" button.  ("/" in my output above corresponds to /dev/sda1.)  Then, Use as = "Ext4 filesystem"; Mount point = "/"; Check box to format the partition; Size = same as it already is, don't change it.  Click "Save" or "Done" (can't remember off hand).  Lastly, near bottom of window, make sure /dev/sda is selected as "Device for bootloader installation".

Double check your entries and then let installer finish installation.  That's it.

[Peter B]

Hi gold_finger
I am just attempting a re-install (on the assumption that I've messed something up previously).
When I get to the "Use As" box, I am only offered "Ext4 journaling file system" not "Ext4 file system"
Is this the same thing, please?

[Peter B]

Update...I successfully managed a clean re-install and re-booted.
Theonly thing I then changed was the language to English UK in the Language Support screen, made the Regional format English UK, applied both changes systemwide and then re-booted.

As before, the Menu layout had changed somewhat and again when I click the "help" button, I get the Screensaver screen and when I click the "about Xfce" button, I am taken back to the Login screen.
I didn't make any other adjustments, not sure what to do now.

[Peter B]

If it helps, this is the Log File straight after that one and only system change.
I'm sure it's something to do with my selection of "English UK" - when I was testing, I never altered this and didn't have any problems.

[attachment deleted by admin, more than 25 days old]

[gold_finger]

When I get to the "Use As" box, I am only offered "Ext4 journaling file system" not "Ext4 file system"
Is this the same thing, please?

Yes -- I was just going by memory, didn't remember exact wording of things.

Update...I successfully managed a clean re-install and re-booted.
Theonly thing I then changed was the language to English UK in the Language Support screen, made the Regional format English UK, applied both changes systemwide and then re-booted.

As before, the Menu layout had changed somewhat and again when I click the "help" button, I get the Screensaver screen and when I click the "about Xfce" button, I am taken back to the Login screen.
I didn't make any other adjustments, not sure what to do now.

Doesn't look like problem caused by anything you did.  Must be something misconfigured when selecting "English UK" by installer for some reason (bug perhaps).

Unless someone else knows the answer and posts back, I'll try installing LL 1.0.8 to VirtualBox and see if can repeat your problem and get lucky trying to figure out how to fix it.  (Long-shot, but maybe I'll get lucky.)  Might be a few hours -- can't get to that right now.

P.s.  Your log file didn't come through on post, but don't worry about posting it.  Problem was immediate with just your language selection -- so that must be the reason.

[Peter B]

I was sure I attached the log file, but sorry it didn't work...I'm in Windows at present, so I can't re-attach it :-)
But yes, that was the only change I made, so I was fairly sure it wasn't me who'd messed up the installation.
Anyway, thank you for looking at it - I think I'll just leave the installation as it is for the time being and not make any other changes in case I might lose them all if I have to re-install again.

[gold_finger]

Finally got around to installing LL 1.0.8 into VirtualBox -- one version US English, another UK English.

Then I realized that ... stupid me ... I'm not sure which "buttons" you are referring to here:

As before, the Menu layout had changed somewhat and again when I click the "help" button, I get the Screensaver screen and when I click the "about Xfce" button, I am taken back to the Login screen.
I didn't make any other adjustments, not sure what to do now.

The "help" button I assume is the 2nd from the top when you click the main Menu button -- right?

For the life of me, I can't figure out where the "about xfce" button you're talking about is.  Can you walk me through exactly where you find that?  (I'm sure I'll want to bop myself in the head when you point it out.)