Antix 8.5, fluxbox

When I bring up the menu, select"Applications", then select"System Tools", then select the first entry for"Synaptic Package Manager", nothing happens. Is that the intended behavior?

(The other entry in the list works - I have to enter the password, and then Synaptic starts up).

To fix it, edit as root /usr/share/applications/synaptic.desktop file to

Exec=gksu synaptic

save and on next login it should open ok.

I'm sorry, I'm not understanding what you wrote.

I don't know what you mean by,"edit as root". When I open the synaptic.desktop file in leafpad, I see a bunch of strange symbols in the file, so I don't know with what tool I would edit this file.

Here is what else confuses me: The entry that doesn't work is in the ~/.fluxbox/applications file. It is in the submenu"System Tools", the entry looks like this:

{exec} (Synaptic Package Manager) {synaptic} <>


Is this the entry you wanted me to make some change to? If not, how does this entry interact with the synaptic.desktop file you suggested I change?

Thanks again.

The applications file gets its information every boot/login from the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications.

Ok, click on Run in menu, make sure Run as root is checked, and type

leafpad /usr/share/applications/synaptic.desktop

Give root password, and then near the bottom of that file fine the Exec entry and make the change I mentioned above.

Thanks again.

When I make the change you're talking about, I should change this existing line:

Exec=su-to-root -X -c /usr/sbin/synaptic

to be this

Exec=gksu synaptic


I just want to make sure, because there is another file - synaptic-kde.desktop - that currently looks like this:

Exec=synaptic

So, I just want to be sure I understand which of those two files you are wanting me to modify.

dln9 wrote:When I make the change you're talking about, I should change this existing line:

Exec=su-to-root -X -c /usr/sbin/synaptic

to be this

Exec=gksu synaptic

Correct.

Ok, I made the changes as suggested.

It appears to have had no impact on the original problem - I can't say that it has hurt anything, but it hasn't solved the problem: Only the second Synaptic entry in the menu works, the first one does nothing. (Why are there two entries anyway?)

The reason why there are 2 entries in the applications section of the fluxbox (and icewm) menu is because there are 2 entries for synaptic in /usr/share/applications, one relates to running synaptic under kde and the other with no desktop environment. The maintainers provide those .desktop files.
antiX auto menu for icewm and fluxbox, picks up on the files in /usr/share/applications so once a user installs an app and the maintainers have provided a .desktop file, then antiX will automatically add it to the menu. Otherwise, users have to do this manually.

To remove the 2 entries, simply delete the synaptic-kde.desktop file from /usr/share/applications.

ok, thanks again, I'll try that.

Alternatively, before you responded, I thought, I'll change the entry for the kde syanptic in the ~/.fluxbox/applications file so that it reads"gksu synaptic" instead of just"synaptic". When I did that, it worked perfectly. But, I discovered that everytime I log out, my changes in the applications file go away. Why is that?

Why: everytime I log out, my changes in the applications file go away.

Because: The applications file gets its information every boot/login from the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications.

wouldn't it be simpler to access synaptic from the control center? it's named manage packages under system from my knowledge.

ok

If you want to leave synaptic-kde.desktop there and don't want it to show up, try adding this line at the end of the file: