Re-do from start

[Fester Bestertester]

(apologies to Hex, the thinking engine at Unseen University on Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld)

I gave up on waiting for a resolution to my security issue: no-password auto-logon, so I formatted / and began again.
All was well - got password-validation at logon - until installing Kaffeine - hello, brick wall. No worries, VLC does the job well enough.I'll try again later.
Then tried reinstalling poptrayminus. Brick wall again - no pyqt4. It's been some time since I did this, and install instructions are sparse if present at all. What to do? Look for an alternative.
Gnubiff looked a fair bet, though needing a full ./configure, make, make install. OK, build-essential. Muon to install it ... What? - rock cliff! Demands install CDROM, (I'd installed by live-USB stick) and won't even abandon gracefully or go to the repo as alternative, needing ps -A and kill of muon.

I've been involved in Digital stuff since DTL, through RTL to TTL (t^2L), and on the way to CMOS encountered M^2L . What's that you ask? MML - Mickey-mouse logic - making logic chips do things they were never designed for! So my question now is: What sort of mickey-mouse outfit do we have here?

[GreyGeek]

You wouldn't hook a 4 volt rated capacitor across a 5 volt bus would you? Why are you trying to do that with Kubuntu 16.04?

Kubuntu 16.04 uses Plasma5, written with QT5. Pyqt4 was written using Plama4, written with QT4

Kaffeine for Plasma5 is here. Master 2.0.4. The last Kaffeine Deb package for an Ubuntu based distro was written for 12.04, the Precise release, 7 years ago. It wasn't picked up again until earlier this year and they are only releasing tar and zip files of the source.

BTW, I learned electronics in grad school during the transition from discrete transistors to VLSI and op amp circuits. Fun times.

[acheron]

Brick wall again - no pyqt4. It's been some time since I did this, and install instructions are sparse if present at all.

pyqt4 is in Xenial

# ./setup.py build
running build
running build_scripts
creating build
creating build/scripts-2.7
copying and adjusting poptrayminus -> build/scripts-2.7
# sudo ./setup.py install
[sudo] password for ****:
running install
running build
running build_scripts
running install_scripts
copying build/scripts-2.7/poptrayminus -> /usr/local/bin
changing mode of /usr/local/bin/poptrayminus to 775
running install_data
creating /usr/local/share/poptrayminus
copying poptrayminus.png -> /usr/local/share/poptrayminus
creating /usr/local/share/pixmaps
copying poptrayminus.png -> /usr/local/share/pixmaps
creating /usr/local/share/applications
copying poptrayminus.desktop -> /usr/local/share/applications
running install_egg_info
Writing /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/poptrayminus-1.2.0.egg-info


works here.

[Fester Bestertester]

Thanks Acheron. All done here OK too - built and installed fine, but ... not working! Go to Terminal:
~$ poptrayminus
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/bin/poptrayminus", line 23, in <module>
import os, sys, datetime, socket, chardet
ImportError: No module named chardet
~$
... so what's missing?

[acheron]

sudo apt install python-chardet

[Fester Bestertester]

Thanks for that GreyGeek ... this one's another real "do from start". With VLC doing the job, I may not even bother

I started in Primary School, building my own (carbon) microphone, got really enthused in Intermediate repairing a 'side-pin valve' (ECH3, EBF2, EL3N, AZ1) BC/SW radio, on to Ham Radio, first call ZL2TKZ 1968 (now ZL2DEX), valve ex-taxi and WWII-surplus aircraft VHF rigs until Southland Branch and PYE Cambridge then Galaxy ...into Digital logic Industrial Control (RTL - TTL) ... Now enthused by Raspberry Pi.

[Fester Bestertester]

Thanks again acheron. All up and running now!

Not bothering with gnubiff now, but still need build-essential (for xastir and clipgrab). Blocked by insistence on CD source ;(

[GreyGeek]

Thanks for that GreyGeek ... this one's another real "do from start". With VLC doing the job, I may not even bother

I started in Primary School, building my own (carbon) microphone, got really enthused in Intermediate repairing a 'side-pin valve' (ECH3, EBF2, EL3N, AZ1) BC/SW radio, on to Ham Radio, first call ZL2TKZ 1968 (now ZL2DEX), valve ex-taxi and WWII-surplus aircraft VHF rigs until Southland Branch and PYE Cambridge then Galaxy ...into Digital logic Industrial Control (RTL - TTL) ... Now enthused by Raspberry Pi.

I had a similar trajectory. Built everything Heathkit offered, including their 24" color TV set, their DX-60 CW transmitter (bought the Drake receiver), built a 15 foot cubical quad antenna and with 60 watts got a 5-5-9 signal in Japan! WN5VSX, but never went farther because I switched to golf!

Taught electronics in college for about 10 years, along with physics, math, chemistry and other sciences.

Later I built my own computer from parts (whitebox). Haven't done any electronics since I started programming professionally in 1980.

[Fester Bestertester]

I thought all was sweet until ... trying to rebuild xastir by cvs or git script, needing build-essential. Persistent lockout from the apt system, traced to having formatted / as EFI. Faux pas! There was a warning during the install, but all booted up OK, but it seems that was using the original grub system. The new install put amd64 stuff in, and the old grub looks for i386, leaving apt with stuff incomplete and blocking further activity. Looks like another re-do, and I hope I can get rid of that EFI. This grub system is a true B'Stard! No clean uninstall / remove, eff-all info beyond 'info', and that such a clunk to navigate. xastir can wait a few days to see if there's a suggestion from here ...

[GreyGeek]

OUCH!
Well, the quickest remedy is a reinstall with 16.04.2. That will take about 20 minutes. Updating your needed software packages will take another couple hours. So, 3 (or even 4) hours can be a time saver over trying to repair a borked system. JMO.