I like to use this simple timer program for various reasons, but usually I need it for cooking:
Apparently it is only available by way of Flatpack. That’s ok, it’s not very big anyway. So I followed the instructions on the link above for installation. Everything seemed to install fine. But now I can’t locate the icon to place on my desktop. It does not appear anywhere in the launch menu, unlike in Manjaro. I’m hoping someone here might know the reason, as I’m new to using the command line. Below is the output:
are not in the search path set by the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable, so
applications installed by Flatpak may not appear on your desktop until the
session is restarted.
Looking for matches…
Required runtime for com.github.vikdevelop.timer/x86_64/stable (runtime/org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/47) found in remote flathub
Do you want to install it? [Y/n]: y
I will go ahead and do that. Was hoping there was an alternative. Not that I mind, but it would be nice not to have to restart simply because a small timer app was installed.
Ok I was wrong, it did appear in the Launch menu. It just didn’t appear on the desktop itself, like the message in the terminal implied it would.
I’m running KDE.
That command produces this output:
error: app/org.freedesktop.Notifications/x86_64/master not installed
Although it works fine with a desktop Icon now. I looked into using the terminal to restart the desktop, but it looked kind of intimidating. I have learned not to mess around with the Linux video stack. It’s a cantankerous beast.
Hopefully it’s within the rules to do what I’m about to do:
Ask a few more questions that are only loosely related to the original topic, instead of starting a new thread. Might as well!
Often when using the terminal to install, I’ll see a warning that says it’s going to skip PGP key verification. But the next thing it does is check sha256, which always passes. Sounds like everything is ok since the checksums matched. But what’s with the PGP thing? Perhaps the program’s author did not set this up and thus it can’t be checked?
IIRC, you used to be able to right click the desktop screen, and click “refresh desktop”. (using KDE)
Would that be the same as restarting the computer, when it comes to getting my little Timer app to appear? Although I think that problem may have been the fault of the programmer, because I just installed Annotator and it all worked as one would imagine it should.
When using Pacseek, I am seeing another repository that’s just called “Extra”. Mostly it’s the AUR, which is blue in color. But the “Extra” is green. I am hesitant to use a repository I know nothing about so I was hoping someone here might know what that is.
No, but you could probably just logout and log back in. Or stop and start the flatpak service. I don’t use flatpaks unless I absolutely must (and on Arch with the AUR, I don’t have to), so I’m not sure on the limits.
It’s just things that don’t fit (extra). No less valid than core.
If the checksum is fine, skipped PGP key verifications may not related to that.
Instead of restarting the whole system, logging off and on again would also create a new session.
Extra is actually an officially maintained repository from the Arch Linux team. And therefore, it`s even less problematic than the Arch User Repository. The most popular / frequently used software packages are usually directly maintained in extra. Besides extra there is also core and multilib ( but stay away from testing ).
When you’re installing a new program, sometimes it will ask you if you want to remove all the make files after it’s done. Do you guys do that? It said that updates might be slower if you do this. I’m considering always leaving them there because of that. But I don’t want my drive to pile up with them, as I have no idea how big they are or how many there are.
Maybe it’s best to always tell it to delete them after installation is complete?
Run pacman -sl <repo> to list all the packages in a certain repository.
’
For example for core repository that contains the most essential building blocks of a minimal functioning system, that is when you boot up, you get a black screen with a line at the top left for you to log into another black screen
pacman -Sl core
Anything that make your experience of Arch more friendly goes into Extra. This will include packages for your desktop environment, web browsers, text editors, media players and you name it:
Is sudo -Scc a safe command to run? I like the idea of clearing out the cache of leftover files from yay. I checked and it said I had some 685 Mb sitting in there. I didn’t want to actually run the command before checking. It sounds like it’s only deleting temporary files though. Here’s what the command said:
[jersten@jerstenmain ~]$ yay -Scc
[sudo] password for jersten:
Cache directory: /var/cache/pacman/pkg/
:: Do you want to remove ALL files from cache? [y/N] y
removing all files from cache…
Database directory: /var/lib/pacman/
:: Do you want to remove unused repositories? [Y/n] y
removing unused sync repositories…
Build directory: /home/jersten/.cache/yay
:: Do you want to remove ALL AUR packages from cache? [Y/n]
There is pacman -Scc and yay -Scc. While the former will clear out all the packages from your
/var/cache/pacman/pkg ( these are packages installed from the repositories declared in pacman.conf) the latter, in addition, will clear all the packages and build files from AUR too, that you have used yay to build yourself. These are stored under ~/.cache/yay in your home directory.
It is not advisable to clear out all that packages from cache. There are rare cases when an update will break something on your system. Having those older packages in cache you can easily downgrade. But it is not the end of the world. You can still access those packages remotely from Arch’s archive.
There are also other tools like paccache which will give you more options on what to clear out from your pacman cache.
Please refer to relevant sectors in ArchWiki regarding package management and system maintenance.
Should be the first address, in case you’re looking for software packages. Those repos are officially maintained. Safe and unproblematic.
Looks pretty much the same, but theses are the community maintained packages. Might be stable. Or not.
Could include orphans (not maintained anymore) or outdated packages. Or they have to be built locally from source (‘-git suffix) which may take some time. Prebuild binaries are available as well (’-bin suffix). Caution is advised, as those packages aren’t officially maintained. Check the comments. Common issues with a package are usually pinned. You can/should review the PKGBUILDs before you install.
[ALHP] automated & optimized builds of the official [core], [extra] & [multilib] repositories using CPU feature level optimizations. (i.e. interprocedural optimizations at the compiler level.)
[Chaotic-Aur] Pre-build binaries from the AUR, automated build & complilation process. (e.g. not maintained by a user)
Yes that guide was given to me on the EndeavorOS Telegram channel. Quite helpful. The only thing is, I don’t believe this part is possible, and the telegram users seemed to agree:
Don’t reset or hard power off your system - It causes filesystem corruption and other issues. Don’t do it. Be sure to enable Sysrq which allows you to use REISUB if your system freezes.
This is because sometimes power will be cut to your house, for one reason or another. If your computer was running during that time, it’s going to do a hard reset. I think this probably happens to most people. I do intend to get a battery backup to plug into, but right now I have to wait on available funds.
