STICKY: PIXEL desktop: now defunct and replaced by Raspbian Stretch

[jtmoderate876]

***UPDATE TO MY POST - FIXED***

***ORIGINAL***
Darn, I should have made a backup image.

I lost my "start" menu after upgrading.
Any idea how to fix?
Is this the same issue that frtlr had?
Any help appreciated.

To upgrade, I followed the instructions from the "Introducing Pixel" blog, which was:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

now all I have is a pretty picture of a highway and a trash can.
I did the upgrade via XRDP if that matters.


***FIXED VIA ****
the following copy command
cp -rp /etc/xdg/lxpanel/profile/LXDE/* ~/.config/lxpanel/LXDE/

found here:
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=23062

[karrika]

"Chromium for the Pi. This uses the Pi’s hardware to accelerate playback of streaming video content."

I just upgraded my Pi 3. Is there some special "enable acceleration" commands required?

I can watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOiUfSd3ohs smoothly on the web page. But when I go full screen the music stops all the time and the video is not in sync. Perhaps my expectations are too high?

Edit: by enabling OpenGL acceleration for the desktop I get an error message for every video - nothing plays. So that was a bad idea.

[DNPNWO]

Darn, I should have made a backup image.

I lost my "start" menu after upgrading.
Any idea how to fix?
Is this the same issue that frtlr had?
Any help appreciated.

To upgrade, I followed the instructions from the "Introducing Pixel" blog, which was:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

now all I have is a pretty picture of a highway and a trash can.
I did the upgrade via XRDP if that matters.

FYI the Chromium Browser in Pixel is badly broken:
viewtopic.php?f=63&t=161391&p=1044696#p1044696

I didn't make a backup either, but I got lucky that there is a raspbian/debian jessie, kernel 4.4.13 image updated with apt-get update/apt-get upgrade as of 9/6/16.

Image: http://goo.gl/sMGFGv

image info: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2X5T2 ... 6156510051

[jtmoderate876]

Thanks DNPNWO.
I was able to fix (see my updated post earlier).
This seems to be caused, in my case, by doing an upgrade from a remote desktop session (XRDP)

[W. H. Heydt]

Good to finally to move to a more standard browser with chromium. Long overdue.
Epiphany was increasingly old and buggy - replacing it was always my first job on install...

All nice pretty changes, good for a desktop - but not sure on removing "cryptic boot messages"
- they are a standard part of linux and raspberry pi is supposed to be educating users, not hiding details - that is the way of apple .

Mostly a great update !

Personally, I prefer to see the boot messages as well, but it's fairly trivial to take out 'splash' from cmdline.

There is also a bit of a conflict between having a fast, parallel init system and being able to see the boot messages. It's debatable whether boot messages are a standard part of the linux experience anymore. That's a bit of a controversial idea, but seems to be the direction systemd and many mainstream distros are heading.

having missed this thread, I posted elsewhere my reasons for preferring to see the boot messages. Having them show is consistent with having everything out in the open characteristic that the Pi hardware exhibits. It is also useful as a "learning experience for people who have only ever used Windows or Mac systems. You can point out that those systems do the very same thing, only they *hide* it from you behind a splash screen.

Not even sure about the "any more" part of your remarks. I have a Linux system I built in 2003 that hides the boot messages (though it has a button that will show them to you, but the default is to hide them).

[kusti8]

"Chromium for the Pi. This uses the Pi’s hardware to accelerate playback of streaming video content."

I just upgraded my Pi 3. Is there some special "enable acceleration" commands required?

I can watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOiUfSd3ohs smoothly on the web page. But when I go full screen the music stops all the time and the video is not in sync. Perhaps my expectations are too high?

Edit: by enabling OpenGL acceleration for the desktop I get an error message for every video - nothing plays. So that was a bad idea.

It won't work with OpenGL. Make sure you have h264ify installed.

[scruss]

What if I'm a mainframe luddite and want 24 lines of 80 characters in green / highlighted green on a black background

Code: Select all

sudo apt install xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver
/usr/lib/xscreensaver/phosphor -delay 1000 -program 'bash'

You can thank me later.

Personally, I'm more about Glass TTY VT220 amber-on-black with a Tek graphics window opened on the side, but that's just me.

[karrika]

"Chromium for the Pi. This uses the Pi’s hardware to accelerate playback of streaming video content."

I just upgraded my Pi 3. Is there some special "enable acceleration" commands required?

I can watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOiUfSd3ohs smoothly on the web page. But when I go full screen the music stops all the time and the video is not in sync. Perhaps my expectations are too high?

Edit: by enabling OpenGL acceleration for the desktop I get an error message for every video - nothing plays. So that was a bad idea.

It won't work with OpenGL. Make sure you have h264ify installed.

I had h264ify installed and enabled in Chromium extensions. Activating GL for the desktop throws "Aw, Snap! Something went wrong" message for _every_ youtube video. Taking GL away returned correct operations.

Actually I see no improvement in youtube videos. Perhaps I am doing something wrong.

[jtmoderate876]

The Chromium addition is turning out to be very nice - I can now upload files to google drive, copy/paste/edit to google docs, and probably much more - Chrome can handle it.

Drive can now also be my storage for pi files - that will save a lot time rather than messing around with mounting network drives, regularly having leafpad unable to edit network files (never figured that one out but it happens constantly).

Thanks for Chrome!

[EdwinJ85]

I am not seeing any improvement with youtube videos - I have the same performance as chromium without h264ify installed. The H264ify icon stays grey on youtube and doesn't appear to be active

This h264 video sample appears to work OK http://www.html5videoplayer.net/videos/toystory.mp4 with 25% cpu use and minor screen tear, but full screen drags to a halt.

I also get a lot of cursor flicker when scrolling down long web pages with the mouse wheel.

The new icons seem a bit more basic than the old ones which I preferred, but that's probably just a taste thing, the whole package is very good, thanks again to everybody who made it.

Other than that, really liking this new desktop - the new window system is ace.

[kusti8]

I am not seeing any improvement with youtube videos - I have the same performance as chromium without h264ify installed. The H264ify icon stays grey on youtube and doesn't appear to be active

This h264 video sample appears to work OK http://www.html5videoplayer.net/videos/toystory.mp4 with 25% cpu use and minor screen tear, but full screen drags to a halt.

I also get a lot of cursor flicker when scrolling down long web pages with the mouse wheel.

The new icons seem a bit more basic than the old ones which I preferred, but that's probably just a taste thing, the whole package is very good, thanks again to everybody who made it.

Other than that, really liking this new desktop - the new window system is ace.

It's subtle, but it keeps the temp from going too high and the frame rates are a bit better. Also means that it can sort of run on a Pi0 and Pi1 and run pretty good on a Pi2.

[Tzarls]

tightvnc now with encryption supported?

tightvnc hasn't been touched at all. RealVNC comes pre-installed, but I don't know if the applied license allows encryption. If you would like to use tightvnc with encryption, look up tightvnc ssh tunnelling.

Hmmm...

Is my connection encrypted?
Yes, if you have an Enterprise or a Personal license. Free licenses do not support end-to-end encryption,

https://www.realvnc.com/docs/faq/encryption.html

Very bad, in my opinion. Tunneling:Don't want to make things more complicated than they are.

...I'm about to test TigerVNC.

Funny, I connected to my RPi2 from my phone and it showed a "128 bit encryption" message.

[peterlite]

"an old fart"
This is the world of technology. "old" defines you as > 14.
"fart" is a technical term I do not understand. Is it something to do with Windows?

[peterlite]

I like the look. Will browse all the background images before deleting them.

"there’s a lightning bolt for undervoltage"
South Australia could use that symbol for their state power grid.

"compared to what Apple and Microsoft are now shipping"
Oh no, Metro. Flat design. Hopefully we will never see the M$ Office menu bars or the junk that is at the bottom of the OSX screen.

"We’ve preinstalled a couple of extensions; the uBlock Origin adblocker"
My Chromium experience is a couple of years out of date. Is NoScript or equivalent available? What does Chromium do with Adobe privacy breaking cookies?

I will try PIXEL next week on my spare Pi 3. The one thing I do not like is the idea of having different desktops on my Zero and Pi 3. Perhaps there will be a thread on making PIXEL work at a reasonable speed on a Zero.

[mdaniels.w]

Funny story... our school tech club is new to Raspberry PI and just started playing with it yesterday. We did an unboxing and downloaded and installed noobs on sd cards. Today, the second half of the club did the same thing and they had different desktops and we freaked out thinking something was very wrong. We didn't know about this update - what weird timing!

[frtlr]

***UPDATE TO MY POST - FIXED***

***ORIGINAL***
Darn, I should have made a backup image.

I lost my "start" menu after upgrading.
Any idea how to fix?
Is this the same issue that frtlr had?
Any help appreciated.

To upgrade, I followed the instructions from the "Introducing Pixel" blog, which was:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

now all I have is a pretty picture of a highway and a trash can.
I did the upgrade via XRDP if that matters.


***FIXED VIA ****
the following copy command
cp -rp /etc/xdg/lxpanel/profile/LXDE/* ~/.config/lxpanel/LXDE/

found here:
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=23062

if matters i solved the issue by copying the panel file from "/home/pi/oldconffiles/.config/lxpanel/LXDE-pi/panels" to "/home/pi/.config/lxpanel/LXDE-pi/panels"

i will keep your solution in mind also.

[lohtse]

I have an issue where I try to open a folder(OTHER) in the applications menu (has a dozen apps in it ) it crashes the desktop and reloads it. If I try to open access the folder to many times(4 or more) it crashes the Desktop completely and the only way to use the Pi is a full reboot...

Any ideas why this is happening??



posted the issue in the blog but oddly the post never got published

[spl23]

The one thing I do not like is the idea of having different desktops on my Zero and Pi 3. Perhaps there will be a thread on making PIXEL work at a reasonable speed on a Zero.

PIXEL itself runs absolutely fine on a Zero - its just the Chromium browser that struggles on low-powered hardware. We've been testing PIXEL on Pi 0 and Pi 1, and there is no noticeable degradation in performance over previous versions of the desktop.

[lohtse]

I have a second issue of installed or newly installed apps not showing up in the menus!!! Eg Viking was installed before upgrade and now is not showing in menus yet shows as installed in synaptic.. Have done a reinstall and nothing changes.


is there a fix?

[tvjon]

I have an issue where I try to open a folder(OTHER) in the applications menu (has a dozen apps in it ) it crashes the desktop and reloads it. If I try to open access the folder to many times(4 or more) it crashes the Desktop completely and the only way to use the Pi is a full reboot...

...

posted the issue in the blog but oddly the post never got published

I have the same issue. This is an updated Jessie, no time to install a new one yet.


perhaps because youŕe a new forum member.

[EdwinJ85]

I am not seeing any improvement with youtube videos - I have the same performance as chromium without h264ify installed. The H264ify icon stays grey on youtube and doesn't appear to be active

This h264 video sample appears to work OK http://www.html5videoplayer.net/videos/toystory.mp4 with 25% cpu use and minor screen tear, but full screen drags to a halt.

I also get a lot of cursor flicker when scrolling down long web pages with the mouse wheel.

The new icons seem a bit more basic than the old ones which I preferred, but that's probably just a taste thing, the whole package is very good, thanks again to everybody who made it.

Other than that, really liking this new desktop - the new window system is ace.

It's subtle, but it keeps the temp from going too high and the frame rates are a bit better. Also means that it can sort of run on a Pi0 and Pi1 and run pretty good on a Pi2.

Yeah, I think I can see the lower CPU use on youtube (around 20/30%) and it doesn't ever get too hot on my pi 3. Full screen would be brilliant but I understand this isn't an easy thing to do!

[pi-anazazi]

Funny, I connected to my RPi2 from my phone and it showed a "128 bit encryption" message.

256bit would be FAR better...

[jamesh]

that "trail of cryptic boot messages" is helpful to me and has been helpful over the last year or so when crafting the Raspbian distro for duplication on my RPis...

ah well... <sigh> yet another editing task to add to the list...

i'm sure there are other improvements... will check out the browser, etc.

willie
on the trying-to-keep-distro-bloat-in-check Gulf of Mexico

Sigh (well, you started it). You are doing something that requires seeing the boot messages. You are one in a million. Literally. So for the other 999999 getting rid of the boot messages is either a good thing, or irrelevant. So should shoud those 999999 suffer with boot messages, just because you want to see them?

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Live with it, the rest of us do.

[linux_author]

that "trail of cryptic boot messages" is helpful to me and has been helpful over the last year or so when crafting the Raspbian distro for duplication on my RPis...

ah well... <sigh> yet another editing task to add to the list...

i'm sure there are other improvements... will check out the browser, etc.

willie
on the trying-to-keep-distro-bloat-in-check Gulf of Mexico

Sigh (well, you started it). You are doing something that requires seeing the boot messages. You are one in a million. Literally. So for the other 999999 getting rid of the boot messages is either a good thing, or irrelevant. So should shoud those 999999 suffer with boot messages, just because you want to see them?

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Live with it, the rest of us do.

'started it'?? not sure what you mean... and i disagree about the boot messages... first of all, if boot messages are 'cryptic,' that might be due to kernel programmers using terse printk() calls *or* the skill/knowledge/ability level of the user to decipher what's going on (something that will always improve with experience)... no one 'suffers' boot messages...

please take another look at my original post - no where do i advocate or posit that Raspbian set a default according to my wishes... i simply pointed out that the new default will involve additional editing on my part... that's something that i have to deal with when customizing/crafting any GNU/Linux distro

i'm sure there are many helpful improvements in the new release... i've been pleased so far with the Raspbian experience...

but really, please drop the adversarial tone... it's not becoming, nor proper moderator behavior

[mikerr]

I have an issue where I try to open a folder(OTHER) in the applications menu (has a dozen apps in it ) it crashes the desktop and reloads it.

viewtopic.php?f=66&t=161285