[DESKTOP] Dolphin questions

[DoYouKubuntu]

I don't know what I've overlooked, but I can't get Dolphin behaving exactly as I like.

When displaying the contents of a networked drive, I'm used to simply clicking 'properties' [from the right-click menu] and seeing everything, including size, for that item, whether a file or directory. But now, I have to actively choose 'calculate' in order to see the size of a directory--it does display individual files' sizes without doing anything. How can I change this?

I don't want, or ever use, 'trash' on any device--in my very old-school UNIX world, delete means DELETE! But I'm not seeing a way to disable trash, nor a way of ridding the right-click menu of its 'move to trash' option. That option is only there when viewing local files; on networked drives, 'delete' is the only deletion option. Guidance, please?

PS Regarding my adventures with this new laptop... The intermittent, random, Internet connectivity problem persists. Yesterday, after about my hundredth [that's a slight exaggeration, but hopefully you get my point] and, hopefully, final reinstall, I had nothing running but Konsole, which was doing a ping/sleep continuous test. I let it go on for 15-20 minutes...not one hiccup. Then, with windows aligned so I could watch that as I proceeded, I ran Firefox. Boom! Just. Like. That. I got the 'temporary failure in name resolution.' I won't bore you with other details, but during my many reinstalls, I tested various things, to rule them in/out, such as Bluetooth, and could not figure out what's causing this issue. What I *do* know is that it's not specific to SeaMonkey--as I initially thought--or any other application I've tried.

They can all cause it. It really seems to boil down to doing anything useful with the computer. That's obviously not acceptable, so tomorrow I'm going to talk to System76. I'm hopeful that they'll be able to sort this out, even though they don't install Kubuntu themselves.

[claydoh]

Dolphin..., You'd need edit some UI layout config file in the source code and recompile the file browser to remove the trash option in the UI, as far as I can tell.
However, besides the shift-delete to delete, just go to dolphin settings and look at the services section, there is one to add a permanent Delete button. it is the fist thing I do when opening dolphin on a new install

The rest i cannot find anything via my normal quickie searches.


As to thew name resolution, have you tested the dns server(s) your network card is using, as well as the ones on your router, or tested different ones?

[DoYouKubuntu]

Dolphin..., You'd need edit some UI layout config file in the source code and recompile the file browser to remove the trash option in the UI, as far as I can tell.

Just getting rid of it on the right-click menu would be fine. I've never had it in my right-click menu, and just don't like seeing it there.

However, besides the shift-delete to delete, just go to dolphin settings and look at the services section, there is one to add a permanent Delete button. it is the fist thing I do when opening dolphin on a new install

Yep, me too! But I like right-clicking in Dolphin, and using its delete choice; that's just faster for me.

The rest i cannot find anything via my normal quickie searches.

No worries.

As to thew name resolution, have you tested the dns server(s) your network card is using, as well as the ones on your router, or tested different ones?

I'm working on something now, and will overnight, that I hope solves the problem. I'll explain it in detail if it works out, but it starts with a clean install and a new user--with none of my highly-customized settings. So far, so good! Fingers crossed...

[dequire]

Forgive me, but this all sound like 1st world Linux stuff. I mean...I get it, but .. in the GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS...we'll all be ok. If not...patches welcome.

[jglen490]

For an OS developed by people I don't know, for whom many do not receive a paycheck for developing this OS, and with whom the results are better at almost every release - it's darn near perfection.

[DoYouKubuntu]

For an OS developed by people I don't know, for whom many do not receive a paycheck for developing this OS, and with whom the results are better at almost every release - it's darn near perfection.

I couldn't agree more! That's why I not only use it--and have, for 15 years--but also donate yearly to the folks who work on it. I figure it's the least I can do to show my appreciation for a job well done.

And now...back to my connectivity problem: IT'S GONE. [Or, at least, it is as of this moment.] Here's what I did yesterday:

. yet another clean install [by that I mean wiping / only; I left my other partitions, /data and /home, alone]
. during the install, I used my favorite cat's name as the username; this created a brand-new, clean $HOME directory with none of my stuff in it
. as soon as it was up, I gave root a password so I could get stuff done easily
. I ran Konsole, only, and let my ping/sleep run for several minutes; no blips at all
. one by one I did various things, such as adjusting ONE system setting, each time checking the ping test afterward to see if it was still good--it was
. I rebooted occasionally, just to verify that nothing would be screwed up when rebooted--nothing was
. I'm typing this with SeaMonkey--with my real user's .mozilla directory copied over before starting it up--and here I am! no blips

What I found out along the way:

. installing the System76 drivers turned out to be a bad idea...a VERY bad idea, as in a black screen upon rebooting. I don't mean a blank screen, but a black screen, like something happened to the display after the initial booting up process--it didn't get past briefly displaying the Kubuntu logo, then the dreaded black screen and that was that

What I've deduced so far about the Internet problem:

. there's something, somewhere in my highly-customized settings that causes it--although I can't figure out how that also affected root. What I mean is that when I logged in as root when that problem was an issue, it happened to root, too, even though root had no influence from my personal settings; there had to be some system configuration file I adjusted as me, that carried over to root. I don't know...

My plan going forward:

Assuming my ping test continues as it's been for over 15 hours, I will continue slowly customizing things to my liking, checking each time that it didn't screw things up. When I'm satisfied that it's all good, I'll change the username to my normal name and be on my way. I'd really like to know WHAT caused this, as it's something I can't recall ever seeing before--something that affected Internet connectivity with both wireless AND wired connections. I mean, I lived through the dreaded Broadcom BCM43xx winmodem days! I remember the joy upon seeing the wireless light light up for the first time. But a hardwired connection was never an issue. Ever. Until this.

If anyone has any ideas/thoughts on the connection issue, I'd love to hear them. I'm uncomfortable not knowing what caused a problem, you know? I don't mind problems, and I like solving them, but I like to learn from them, like how/why they happened and what worked to fix it. Reinstalling the OS has never been my go-to option, and I'd prefer it not be now.

Also, regarding Dolphin, I can live with the trash option on the right-click menu, but--this being Linux--I expect to be able to adjust it to my liking! So I'm surprised that it apparently can't be done. But what about the 'calculate' issue? I've never had to manually do something to see a networked directory's size, and I'd really like to eliminate that.

[claydoh]

I expect to be able to adjust it to my liking! So I'm surprised that it apparently can't be done

It can be done, just need to do it yourself.

https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphi.../release/19.12
https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=224&t=143464
https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphi...ontextmenu.cpp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRz1r_db7hw

Might have to ask around where developers hang out, probably not going to see any of there here on KFN much.



Being free to change things has nothing to do with programmers being required to code provisions for every possible option and desired feature.


^^^^
I feel like a broken record, I wonder how many times I have said that over the past 20 years?

[DoYouKubuntu]

Thanks, @claydoh, I'll take a look. Or not. I'm not too keen right now on doing anything more difficult than clicking.

I do wonder why 'trash' was always removable from Dolphin's right-click menu before, and isn't now...

[Fred47]

"I don't want, or ever use, 'trash' on any device--in my very old-school UNIX world, delete means DELETE!"

Spoken by someone who has never accidentally deleted a file.

[GreyGeek]

"I don't want, or ever use, 'trash' on any device--in my very old-school UNIX world, delete means DELETE!"

Spoken by someone who has never accidentally deleted a file.

That's what backups are for. Running BTRFS is especially good about recovering accidentally deleted files from a snapshot taken while the deleted file was present on the disk. That's also why some people take snapshots every hour, or 30 minutes, or 15 minutes or 10 minutes. Such snapshots take little to no disk space until you delete a file. Before the deletion occurs a copy of the file is moved to the most recent snapshot, from which it can be easily retrieved.

Of course, taking 120 or 240 snapshots a day will require cleaning up at the end of the day when the archival snapshot is taken and stored on another medium.

[DoYouKubuntu]

"I don't want, or ever use, 'trash' on any device--in my very old-school UNIX world, delete means DELETE!"

Spoken by someone who has never accidentally deleted a file.

Yep! You're correct. But let's narrow things down a little...

I'm absolutely anal about backups. For 30+ years I've kept both local and remote backups. In the 1980s, 'remote' meant my house, i.e., I'd do my nightly backup at work, then take one copy of the Bernoulli drive's eight inch floppies home with me, leaving the other set in my locked office. I personally never had to restore a file, but I did have to occasionally for various end-users. Ditto at my next job. At home, I did routine backups, first on floppies, then Iomega Zip drives, then CDs, DVDs...

Today, I keep physical backups [USB hard drives and thumb drives], and also store things in 'the cloud.' I had a [paid] Dropbox account for years, but recently switched to Amazon Drive, which is a really good deal if you pay annually.

Now let's get back to accidental deletions. I just don't let them happen.

When I'm at a command line, especially as root, and I've typed any command starting with rm, such as rm -rf this_directory, I make absolutely SURE I'm in the right place, and typed the right file name, and have not used wildcards incorrectly, etc., before I even touch the [enter] key. In Dolphin, same thing, I make SURE that anything highlighted is actually what I intend to delete, THEN I hit the delete icon. This nitpicky, anal-retentive, predictable, methodical behavior has kept me from catastrophe for decades. However...

I can't honestly swear that I've never accidentally deleted something because, frankly, at 60+ and having had two illnesses that affected my memory, I just can't be 100% sure. What I am sure of is that I've never LOST data. So if, somewhere along the line, maybe 20 or 30 years ago that I don't recall now, I really did delete something by mistake, I must've restored it from backup because I know I've just never experienced the shock and trauma of "oh $&%$#@!@#(*&! my data disappeared! "

The first thing I do, whether on Linux or Android, is eliminate 'trash cans'/'recycle bins' from anything that gives me that option. When I press whatever app's delete button, I really and truly mean to delete. But...if I ever screw up, I've got backups!

[DoYouKubuntu]

That's what backups are for.

Exactly!

[jglen490]

I learned sometime ago to use a fully qualified path and file name when deleting a file. That, more than anything has saved my bacon/files more than anything.

I don't get this anti-trashcan thing at all, precisely because of when it's gone, it's gone. But, it is a choice, and one that I don't choose to exercise. Sure I've backed up my trashcan more than once in my life, which may seem silly, but I'm not that hard up on space.

Anyway, you've had a lot of difficulties lately, DoYouKubuntu and I hope they will get straightened out.