[gentoo-user] Plasma teething problems - Part I

[gentoo-user] Plasma teething problems - Part I

[Mick]

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Well, not Plasma's but mine for sure.  I have been chasing my tail trying to 
reverse engineer processes/services/applications I do not want auto-running on 
a fresh Plasma installation and I'm fast losing the will to live.

I've installed plasma-meta plus some kde-apps meta packages as follows:

kde-apps/kdeadmin-meta
kde-apps/kdecore-meta
kde-apps/kdegraphics-meta
kde-apps/kdemultimedia-meta
kde-apps/kdenetwork-meta
kde-apps/kdepim-meta
kde-apps/kdeutils-meta
kde-apps/kwalletmanager
kde-frameworks/oxygen-icons
kde-plasma/plasma-meta

One of the above[1] brought in NetworkManager, which I don't use because for 
my use case there's nothing wrong with openrc netifrc scripts.  When I plug in 
a USB wireless adaptor nothing happens since it stays dormant, although its 
LED illuminates.  Then I enable it by starting 'net.wlp0s18f2u1' and at that 
point NM starts fighting over the wireless adaptor, resulting in the unpleasant 
phenomenon of dropping the connection every few minutes and changing its MAC 
address, consequently rendering it unusable with APs which implement ACL.

[1] kde-plasma/plasma-meta requires kde-plasma/powerdevil, which requires kde-
frameworks/networkmanager-qt, which requires net-misc/networkmanager, which 
requires net-misc/modemmanager

So I naively thought, let's try stopping NM (note:  the NetworkManager rc 
service is not set to run at any level, so something else is starting it).  
The moment I stop NM I find my logs being flooded with a storm of 'dbus failing 
to start obex', which bluez wants.  Note: I have not started a bluetooth 
service, or tried running bluetootctl, and BTW rfkill shows the bluetooth 
adaptor is soft blocked anyway.

So I now try to stop dbus and restart it, which results in losing access to 
any Plasma menu applications, so I can't launch any application.  It may be 
worth mentioning when I leave alone NM and just disable the USB adaptor from 
openrc, I also lose access to launching KDE applications (the error message 
when trying to launch an app from a terminal mentions a Qt error).

Could someone more knowledgeable in  Plasma/KDE shenanigans please explain how 
I can end up with a workable USB wireless dongle, which I can enable/disable 
at will?

-- 
Regards,

Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Plasma teething problems - Part I

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 12:00:36 +0100, Mick wrote:

> Well, not Plasma's but mine for sure.  I have been chasing my tail
> trying to reverse engineer processes/services/applications I do not
> want auto-running on a fresh Plasma installation and I'm fast losing
> the will to live.
> 
> I've installed plasma-meta plus some kde-apps meta packages as follows:
> 
> kde-apps/kdeadmin-meta
> kde-apps/kdecore-meta
> kde-apps/kdegraphics-meta
> kde-apps/kdemultimedia-meta
> kde-apps/kdenetwork-meta
> kde-apps/kdepim-meta
> kde-apps/kdeutils-meta
> kde-apps/kwalletmanager
> kde-frameworks/oxygen-icons
> kde-plasma/plasma-meta
> 
> One of the above[1] brought in NetworkManager, which I don't use
> because for my use case there's nothing wrong with openrc netifrc
> scripts.  When I plug in a USB wireless adaptor nothing happens since
> it stays dormant, although its LED illuminates.  Then I enable it by
> starting 'net.wlp0s18f2u1' and at that point NM starts fighting over
> the wireless adaptor, resulting in the unpleasant phenomenon of
> dropping the connection every few minutes and changing its MAC address,
> consequently rendering it unusable with APs which implement ACL.
> 
> [1] kde-plasma/plasma-meta requires kde-plasma/powerdevil, which
> requires kde- frameworks/networkmanager-qt, which requires
> net-misc/networkmanager, which requires net-misc/modemmanager
> 
> So I naively thought, let's try stopping NM (note:  the NetworkManager
> rc service is not set to run at any level, so something else is
> starting it). The moment I stop NM I find my logs being flooded with a
> storm of 'dbus failing to start obex', which bluez wants.  Note: I have
> not started a bluetooth service, or tried running bluetootctl, and BTW
> rfkill shows the bluetooth adaptor is soft blocked anyway.
> 
> So I now try to stop dbus and restart it, which results in losing
> access to any Plasma menu applications, so I can't launch any
> application.  It may be worth mentioning when I leave alone NM and just
> disable the USB adaptor from openrc, I also lose access to launching
> KDE applications (the error message when trying to launch an app from a
> terminal mentions a Qt error).
> 
> Could someone more knowledgeable in  Plasma/KDE shenanigans please
> explain how I can end up with a workable USB wireless dongle, which I
> can enable/disable at will?
> 
Set USE="-wireless" for powerdevil

I have KDE on this laptop, with no NM. The wireless connection is managed
by systemd-networkd here, but the same should be possible with openrc and
no NM.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

System halted - hit any Microsoft employee to continue.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Plasma teething problems - Part I

[Mick]

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On Monday, 24 June 2019 12:17:51 BST Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 12:00:36 +0100, Mick wrote:

> > Could someone more knowledgeable in  Plasma/KDE shenanigans please
> > explain how I can end up with a workable USB wireless dongle, which I
> > can enable/disable at will?
> 
> Set USE="-wireless" for powerdevil
> 
> I have KDE on this laptop, with no NM. The wireless connection is managed
> by systemd-networkd here, but the same should be possible with openrc and
> no NM.

Excellent!  This is what I was looking for.  Thank you Neil.  :-)

-- 
Regards,

Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Plasma teething problems - Part I

[Philip Webb]

190624 Mick wrote:
> On Monday, 24 June 2019 12:17:51 BST Neil Bothwick wrote:
>> On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 12:00:36 +0100, Mick wrote:
>>> Could someone more knowledgeable in  Plasma/KDE shenanigans please
>>> explain how I can end up with a workable USB wireless dongle, which I
>>> can enable/disable at will?
>> Set USE="-wireless" for powerdevil
> Excellent!  This is what I was looking for.  Thank you Neil.  :-)

Finally, a good example of the value of 'USE-"-* ... "' in  make.conf !
I had no idea of any of this & don't need 'powerdevil',
but the '-wireless' flag has been set all along anyway (grin).

Yes, I know there are opposite cases too.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] Plasma teething problems - Part I

[Mick]

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On Monday, 24 June 2019 15:53:04 BST Philip Webb wrote:
> 190624 Mick wrote:
> > On Monday, 24 June 2019 12:17:51 BST Neil Bothwick wrote:
> >> On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 12:00:36 +0100, Mick wrote:
> >>> Could someone more knowledgeable in  Plasma/KDE shenanigans please
> >>> explain how I can end up with a workable USB wireless dongle, which I
> >>> can enable/disable at will?
> >> 
> >> Set USE="-wireless" for powerdevil
> > 
> > Excellent!  This is what I was looking for.  Thank you Neil.  :-)
> 
> Finally, a good example of the value of 'USE-"-* ... "' in  make.conf !
> I had no idea of any of this & don't need 'powerdevil',
> but the '-wireless' flag has been set all along anyway (grin).
> 
> Yes, I know there are opposite cases too.

TBH the opposite cases must be overwhelmingly more that this one.  If it were 
a single package *and* you know which one it is, then it is easy to look at 
its USE flags and make a call to affect its functionality.  In my example here 
I couldn't see the wood for the Plasma/KDE trees, until Neil pointed the 
particular tree I should be barking under ...  :-)

I still wouldn't apply a 'USE-"-* ... "' approach unless I was looking for a 
way to spend many hours contemplating the causes of breaking stuff and then 
breaking them again after an update/upgrade.

-- 
Regards,

Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Plasma teething problems - Part I

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 10:53:04 -0400, Philip Webb wrote:

> >> Set USE="-wireless" for powerdevil  
> > Excellent!  This is what I was looking for.  Thank you Neil.  :-)  
> 
> Finally, a good example of the value of 'USE-"-* ... "' in  make.conf !

Far from it, by knowing which flags are set per package, you have far
more control of your system.

Of course, if you enjoy investigating random breakages at inconvenient
times, USE="-*" is a good way to keep yourself happy ;-)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

And then Adam said, "What's a headache?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Plasma teething problems - Part I

[Mick]

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On Monday, 24 June 2019 12:31:26 BST Mick wrote:
> On Monday, 24 June 2019 12:17:51 BST Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 12:00:36 +0100, Mick wrote:
> > > Could someone more knowledgeable in  Plasma/KDE shenanigans please
> > > explain how I can end up with a workable USB wireless dongle, which I
> > > can enable/disable at will?
> > 
> > Set USE="-wireless" for powerdevil
> > 
> > I have KDE on this laptop, with no NM. The wireless connection is managed
> > by systemd-networkd here, but the same should be possible with openrc and
> > no NM.
> 
> Excellent!  This is what I was looking for.  Thank you Neil.  :-)

I can attest to the fact powerdevil with its devilish tentacles which dragged 
in NetworkManager was the cause of my problems, plus KDE's default setting:

 'Enable bluetooth integration' 

was causing all this obex race by dbus.  Now I have a 'normal' system to work 
with.  :-)

The only thing I noticed after I disabled the wifi, rfkilled it and pulled the 
USB dongle was this entry in the logs:

Jun 24 18:23:51 localhost kernel: usb 1-1: USB disconnect, device number 3
Jun 24 18:23:53 localhost /etc/init.d/net.wlp0s18f2u1[5619]: net.wlp0s18f2u1: 
not allowed to be hotplugged
Jun 24 18:23:53 localhost dhcpcd[3208]: wlp0s18f2u1: removing interface

I'm not sure of its meaning ... 

Is openrc angry with me for unplugging the by definition pluggable and already 
disabled USB device?  :-/

-- 
Regards,

Mick

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[gentoo-user] Re: Plasma teething problems - Part I

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 24/06/2019 14:00, Mick wrote:
> I've installed plasma-meta plus some kde-apps meta packages as follows:
> 
> kde-apps/kdeadmin-meta
> kde-apps/kdecore-meta
> kde-apps/kdegraphics-meta
> kde-apps/kdemultimedia-meta
> kde-apps/kdenetwork-meta
> kde-apps/kdepim-meta
> kde-apps/kdeutils-meta
> kde-apps/kwalletmanager
> kde-frameworks/oxygen-icons
> kde-plasma/plasma-meta
> 
> One of the above[1] brought in NetworkManager, which I don't use because for
> my use case there's nothing wrong with openrc netifrc scripts.
> [...]
> [1] kde-plasma/plasma-meta requires kde-plasma/powerdevil, which requires kde-
> frameworks/networkmanager-qt, which requires net-misc/networkmanager, which
> requires net-misc/modemmanager

I use Plasma, and NW is not installed. I have "-networkmanager" in my 
USE flags in make.conf. Add that, and do a:

     emerge -auDN --with-bdeps=y @world
     emerge -a --depclean

You should then be able to install Plasma without NW.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Plasma teething problems - Part I

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 17:09:02 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

> > [1] kde-plasma/plasma-meta requires kde-plasma/powerdevil, which
> > requires kde- frameworks/networkmanager-qt, which requires
> > net-misc/networkmanager, which requires net-misc/modemmanager  
> 
> I use Plasma, and NW is not installed. I have "-networkmanager" in my 
> USE flags in make.conf.

That's not enough, powerdevil doesn't have a networkmanager USE flag, you
have to set -wireless for powerdevil. Here's the relevant portion of the
DEPEND definition in the ebuild

        wireless? (
                $(add_frameworks_dep bluez-qt)
                $(add_frameworks_dep networkmanager-qt)
        )


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Bagpipe for free: Stuff cat under arm. Pull legs, chew tail.

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