Tuesday, March 03, 2015

"I want my xfce...."

Sorry, Mr. Knopfler, it doesn't scan--but it is the truth.

I am now the proud owner of two Raspberry Pi 2s, computers we would have killed for back in the 80s. I have "Raspbian" running on them. (It's a version that apparently will run on the 1 (an ARMv6) and on the 2 (a four-core ARMv7); I definitely want to build it targeting the ARMv7.)

Anyway--it comes up with LXDE for a windowing environment if you use X. Very stripped down, and unfortunately with minimal control over font size, which my wife and I really kind of need. So off we go to install it. It's in the repository, so that's no problem. Then you run

sudo update-alternatives --config x-window-manager

and tell it you want xfce4. Then you get out of X if you're already in it, and then get [back] in...

...and you see LXDE again. (Cheesy descending horn sting here.)

At least that's what happens on my wife's computer. I managed to get mine to come up in xfce4, and I am kicking myself for not having written down exactly what I did, because it's well out of short-term memory now. (I can tell you what it's not; I did NOT uninstall all the LXDE packages, as some people will say you have to do.)

Any ideas? I'd love to hear them.

Riddler Classic, May 23, 2020—Holy Mackerel!

Another one using Peter Norvig's word list . It turns out that the word "mackerel" has a curious property: there is exactly ...