Current Package Request?

WetGeek

There is a piece of software that I think might help to diagnose issues I'm seeing in Xfce. It was recommended to me by ToZ, an administrator of the Xfce forums. But recent changes have left me unable to figure out how to request a package to be added to the Solus repositories. Our previous links of that nature now simply return a "404" error.

What is the current method of requesting that a package be added to Solus?

alfisya

WetGeek This page is up-to-date and working

WetGeek Our previous links of that nature now simply return a "404" error.

Where do you get this error? Something, somewhere need to be updated probably.

Lucien_Lachance

i think u just go here https://github.com/getsolus/packages/issues
theres lots of requests there

WetGeek

alfisya Where do you get this error?

It was via a forum search. I think I just used the terms "package request."

WetGeek

@"Lucien_Lachance", @alfisia

Thanks to both of you for your replies. I was able to get to the start of the package request process, and I was able to examine 5 pages of requests to confirm that there is not already such a request. But I spent about an hour and a half trying to figure out where to look in order to provide answers to all the questions that are marked with a *, indicating that answers are required for those. I finally gave up.

WetGeek

I decided to take a different approach - I'd install some other distros that support Xfce, to see whether any of those would support Bluetooth better than the Solus beta release does. To that end, on my spare laptop, I installed MX Linux and then Linux Mint, both of which I had used in the days before I discovered Solus, and both of which support Xfce.

I did full installs of both distros, not just trying the "Live" versions. MX Linux seemed to me t to be very primitive after using Solus for so many years. I tried to enable my Bluetooth mouse and was unable to. It did not appear to me that it was using the same software that Solus does. Without a functioning mouse, I abandoned that experiment.

Afterward, I installed Linux Mint. This time it was apparent that it used the same Blueman Bluetooth manager that Solus does. And my results were exactly the same as with Solus. I was able to pair and connect my Bluetooth mouse, and use it successfully. However, although I could pair, connect, and trust my Bluetooth keyboard, I was unable to type a single character in the terminal with it.

I've devoted a lot of time to this project, and can only conclude that at present, it's not well suited to folks who would want to use it the same way I would. That's probably a very small part of the potential user pool, so the problem I've experienced may never affect any of Solus' Xfce users. And I'm fine with that.

Since KDE Plasma is my DE of choice, I'm going to abandon Xfce for now, and maybe give it another try when it's no longer a beta. I remain very impressed with Xfce - apart from the problem I've described. It just wouldn't work for me as-is.

AlphaElwedritsch

Maybe with the 4.20 release on December 15

EbonJaeger

AlphaElwedritsch XFCE itself has no Bluetooth handling, so the coming update will have no effect on this.

WetGeek

EbonJaeger

I believe you. I know for a fact that Solus Plasma supports my mouse and keyboard, because I use them all day, every day. I was curious enough to see whether another GNOME-based Solus DE would work with my Bluetooth devices, and the answer is a resounding YES.

Although I've never been a big fan of GNOME, I decided to install Solus GNOME on the same laptop that won't work with Solus Xfce or the other two distros I'd tried. It came as quite a surprise that it not only supports my Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, but it connects with them with very little effort.

I'm using both as I write this message. The laptop is on the laptop stand in front of my chair, the keyboard is on my lap, and the mouse is on the arm of my chair. In other words, exactly the way I work with my Solus Plasma laptop every day. (This adventure has caused me to somewhat modify my opinion of Solus GNOME.)

I'm intrigued enough to leave things setup like this for a while, and configure this computer as if it were my daily driver. (So far, I've only installed Vivaldi and Terminology - enough to update it and write this message.) I don't expect to actually prefer GNOME, but I do expect to learn it better.

Now that I know for sure that there's nothing wrong with my Bluetooth keyboard, I'm wondering why one GNOME-based Solus DE (GNOME) works with it, and another GNOME-based Solus DE (Xfce) does not. Do you know? GNOME doesn't appear that it's using Blueman - the UI looks very different. Is there any reason to believe that the GNOME Bluetooth support might be made to work with Xfce?

WetGeek

After working on it all day, it turns out that my original opinion of GNOME was, in fact, quite accurate. I took a break to eat some dinner, and before I got back to the machine, it had turned off, and disconnected Bluetooth. With the thumb pad turned off, I had no way to do anything until I found a USB mouse and plugged it in.

Then, I needed to "forget" both BT devices and pair them again. I shut down that laptop, returned to my beloved Plasma laptop, and probably won't leave it again. It just plain WORKS the way it should. And now I've spent the whole day trying to make another DE work like Plasma, but failed. Later ...