Desktop Icons Missing

[AlanH]

I have a problem on my new 64 bit Dell laptop, running Cinnamon 17.2 64 bit version 2.6.13. The machine is dual booted with Ubuntu 14.04.

If I use a normal boot the desktop icons are missing, although clicking on their locations opens the folders etc. If I use a recovery boot instead, followed by "Resume" and "OK" everything works fine. If I open a program or file folder the window shows, but opening the Terminal shows only the frame. Typing "exit" in this case closes the frame, so the terminal seems to be responding, it is just invisible. I tried using the System Settings / Desktop switches, setting them to the same values as those shown in the recovery option route, to no avail. I also tried using dconf Editor, following a forum entry that had a similar problem, again to no avail.

Any suggestions?

AlanH

[AlanH]

Seems this is a puzzler! Thanks to all for your consideration.

I might find a clue were I to review and compare the normal and recovery boot scripts. Can anyone tell me where to find them?

Thanks

AlanH

[Cosmo.]

Create a new user account and check, if the problem exists there also.

[AlanH]

Hi Cosmo. Thanks for the the response.

I created a new user as you suggested, and the icons show up fine. I then tried a normal reboot into my usual account, and the icons are still missing. Attempts within the usual account to set a password for the test (new) is user cause the machine to lock up before it asks for admin authority.

It thus appears your suggestion has bearing on the problem. What do you suspect, and what now?

AlanH

[Cosmo.]

Attempts within the usual account to set a password for the test (new) is user cause the machine to lock up before it asks for admin authority.

Any user can change his own password with the settings dialog user account. But changing the password for another user can only be done via User & Groups and with elevated rights, therefor the password prompt. - I admit I am not sure, if I understood the question correctly, otherwise rephrase it please.

Back to the original problem.
Open in your main account a terminal and enter (or better copy it from here and paste it via ctrl-shift-v)

Code: Select all

find $HOME ! -user $USER -type f

Paste the output inclusive the command here. The output might be probably very long, so please enclose it in a code-box. You can do it by marking the complete output after paste and click in the editor window of the forum on the code-box (above the editor window).
(The command does no change; it's purpose is to find out, if there are problems with the ownership of files.)

[AlanH]

I'm having a terrible time here. I've tried posting a response 3 times already, but they're not showing in the forum thread. It's my problem...I'm not familiar enough with the forum controls to get it right. Sorry if this leads to any confusion.

Back to the main problem...

Re my comment "Attempts within...": this was intended as supplemental information about the results of creating a new user account. It was not another question. To reiterate the info, after checking the new user login I went back to the problematic login to create a password for the new account using Users & Groups. This usually asks for an admin password, but this time the machine hung before prompting for one. I had to power down to recover.

Re the requested instruction: When I invoke the Terminal, using the icon in the panel, all I see is the frame. The contents of the frame are missing, just like the desktop icons. As a result I can't do anything that requires reviewing what I type or any results. However, I typed the command you indicated very carefully "blind", and added a redirection to an empty file. The entire contents of that file are pasted between "code" hypertext controls below.

As a comment on the contents of this file: some of it seems rather bizarre in that the lines indicate internal commands for the program indicated in the path ahead. For example, I have a drafting package called Qcad installed. The output file contains lines that are internal commands in Qcad. Perhaps the listing is indicating subroutines that are part of the package, but it does seem a bit strange to me.

Hope this provides what you need.

More trouble: when I try to post this it says the message has too few characters. A preview shows an empty box. If this works it is because I have removed the code box and contents in an attempt to troubleshoot.
Preview now shows. The posting problem appears to be related to the content of the code box. I also tried to upload the captured file as an attachment, with the same rejection problem. Help??

[austin.texas]

I have seen different forums which have trouble with certain special characters inside Code tags.
This forum does have trouble with screenshot names that contain special characters, but that is a different problem.

You can paste the text at - http://pastebin.com/ - and post the resulting link here

As for the terminal, it could just be the colors are off. Right-click anywhere in the terminal window and turn the Menu Bar on, then do Profiles to adjust the colors. (Maybe the Profile config is inaccessible, for some reason.)

I don't know how to approach the problems you are seeing with the administrative user, but if you want to give the new user sudo rights, enter this command:
(if the new user's name is "ghengis")

Code: Select all

sudo adduser ghengis sudo

Then enter your password, of course.

[AlanH]

Hi

You can paste the text at - http://pastebin.com/ - and post the resulting link here

I'm not familiar with this, but tried. However, the faq for the site indicates the maximum past size is 500 kB, and the output I need to post is 615 kB.

As for the terminal, it could just be the colors are off...

I tried playing with the colours, to no avail. A bit more detail: right clicking on the Terminal frame brings up a pop-up menu which includes the show menubar and profiles options. The frame gets deeper when I click on menubar (presumably adding the menu area at the top) but I can't see the menu. Using the profiles control from the pop-up gets me to the profile controls all right, but changing background, theme, text colour, transparency options, anything that seems potentially relevant...nothing makes any difference. Unrelated to your suggestion, if I click and hold near the top of the frame I can move the frame, but it simply moves over the desktop background.

I don't know how to approach the problems you are seeing with the administrative user, but if you want to give the new user sudo rights, enter this command:
(if the new user's name is "ghengis")

I played a bit more with invoking the Users & Groups setting, which I though was locking up the machine. It turns out the prompt for my admin password was being presented, but I can't see the window, so thought nothing happened. If I type the password in "blind" the control proceeds normally. My attempt to set the password was not central to the basic problem, but simply an attempt to extend the information available that might help isolate the difficulty.

Your suggestions are appreciated nonetheless. Thank you.

As new information: extending my authority to superuser (issuing a command in the Terminal after sudo, and typing my admin password) doesn't fix the invisibility. This suggests the problem isn't directly a result of inadequate file permissions, but it wouldn't correct an initialization problem in this area unless the Terminal were started again (which resets the su authority).

If worst comes to worst I'll try re-installing the OS, but it would be nice if this could be avoided.

Isn't computing fun?

AlanH

[austin.texas]

You can paste the text at - http://pastebin.com/ - and post the resulting link here

I'm not familiar with this, but tried. However, the faq for the site indicates the maximum past size is 500 kB, and the output I need to post is 615 kB.

For me the result of that command is a text file of 489 bytes, not kB.
Are you sure your file is 615 kB? Not 615 bytes?

As new information: extending my authority to superuser (issuing a command in the Terminal after sudo, and typing my admin password) doesn't fix the invisibility. This suggests the problem isn't directly a result of inadequate file permissions, but it wouldn't correct an initialization problem in this area unless the Terminal were started again (which resets the su authority).

You started the terminal as user, so switching to su after it is open does not change that.
Try right-click on a folder in the file manager > Open as Root

To enter the command to create a new user, and/or give that user sudo authority, (or to enter any commands) you can switch to a text-only display by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F2, and then Ctrl-Alt-F8 to return to the x display.

One thing I would try is to make sure that everything in your /home is owned by the administrative user (not root).
Do Ctrl-Alt-F2
Log in as the administrative user.
Enter:

Code: Select all

sudo chown  -R $USER:$USER  /home/yourusername

[AlanH]

Hello again. Your patience is amazing!

For me the result of that command is a text file of 489 bytes, not kB.
Are you sure your file is 615 kB? Not 615 bytes?

Yes, 615 kilobytes, not bytes. I just checked it again to make sure. Almost all of the few thousand lines involve the qcad directory for some reason, which seems strange too. The same program works fine on my primary machine (the laptop giving trouble serves an "experimental and backup" purpose) Qcad works on the laptop too if I login using either normal or recovery mode at the grub menu.

You started the terminal as user, so switching to su after it is open does not change that.
Try right-click on a folder in the file manager > Open as Root

This works...I get a flag in the file manager window saying extended privilege, but I'm not sure what you want me to do after getting here. I can see the contents of the folder already (this window comes up visible)

To enter the command to create a new user, and/or give that user sudo authority, (or to enter any commands) you can switch to a text-only display by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F2, and then Ctrl-Alt-F8 to return to the x display.

Ctrl-Alt-F2 does nothing here, even if I take the "recovery" boot option so I can see the desktop icons. Similarly, using Ctrl-Alt-F2 when grub offers its list does nothing.

One thing I would try is to make sure that everything in your /home is owned by the administrative user (not root).
Do Ctrl-Alt-F2
Log in as the administrative user.
Enter:

Code: Select all
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /home/yourusername

I tried this too. Since I can't see anything when I open the Terminal I again typed the command very carefully and added a redirection (> /home/alan/OutputX) to the end to capture the result. The OutputX file appears but is empty (0 bytes shown for size, and blank if opened)

Another piece of information I keep forgetting to include: the recovery grub option produces a warning just after login that I'm running in software rendering mode. There is no video driver. This option is selected in the troublesome boot route too, if I check the selections where it appears. The warning does not come up for a normal boot, however.

I do hope this isn't confusing. I'm trying to respond to your suggestions as carefully and completely as I can.

AlanH

[austin.texas]

You started the terminal as user, so switching to su after it is open does not change that.
Try right-click on a folder in the file manager > Open as Root

This works...I get a flag in the file manager window saying extended privilege, but I'm not sure what you want me to do after getting here. I can see the contents of the folder already (this window comes up visible)

First, this gives you a working terminal that you can use without typing blind. Right?
Second, it indicates that the problem is quite possibly with the ownership of the configuration files for the administrative user. MAYBE that ownership has changed to root instead of user for some config files. That is why I suggested the command

Code: Select all

sudo chown  -R $USER:$USER  /home/yourusername

(If you open a terminal as Root, you don't need "sudo")

Ctrl-Alt-F2 does nothing here, even if I take the "recovery" boot option so I can see the desktop icons. Similarly, using Ctrl-Alt-F2 when grub offers its list does nothing.

Ctrl-Alt-F2 will do nothing at the Grub menu, only after you boot the OS.
I believe Ctrl-Alt-F2 should work under just about any conditions after your OS is booted.
But anyway, I was just trying to get you to a command prompt that you could use to enter the suggested commands without typing blind.
1.) Ctrl-Alt-F2
2.) Right-click on a folder > Open as Root
3.) Type out your commands in a text editor so that you can see them, then copy and paste them into the terminal. Paste using the mouse. Do not do Ctrl-v to paste in a terminal. (You can use Shift-Ctrl-v)
4.) Boot to the Grub menu. Type "e" for Edit. Go to the line that starts with "linux".
Replace "quiet splash" with "text", so that it looks like this:

Code: Select all

linux	/boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-38-generic root=UUID=a2cd308e-2307-4bb4-8382-b54b792b8a79 ro   text

Then F10 to boot. That will boot Mint at tty1 - purely textual, no graphics. Log in as admin user. Enter the chown command, or the command to make the standard user a member of the sudo group... whatever commands you need to enter. When you are done entering commands, reboot with the command

Code: Select all

sudo shutdown -r now

Since I can't see anything when I open the Terminal I again typed the command very carefully and added a redirection (> /home/alan/OutputX) to the end to capture the result.

That won't work. Don't redirect that command.

[AlanH]

Progress! More specifically

First, this gives you a working terminal that you can use without typing blind. Right?
Second, it indicates that the problem is quite possibly with the ownership of the configuration files for the administrative user. MAYBE that ownership has changed to root instead of user for some config files. That is why I suggested the command

Code: Select all
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /home/yourusername

I logged in as root, opened the Terminal successfully, and typed the above. Here is the capture of the sequence

[alan-Inspiron-3451 ~ # chown -R $USER:$USER /home/alan
alan-Inspiron-3451 ~ #

As you can see, the command produced no output. I then proceeded with your later instruction

4.) Boot to the Grub menu. Type "e" for Edit. Go to the line that starts with "linux".
Replace "quiet splash" with "text", so that it looks like this:

Code: Select all
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-38-generic root=UUID=a2cd308e-2307-4bb4-8382-b54b792b8a79 ro text

Then F10 to boot.

but didn't change the quiet splash to test because the success of the previous sequence got me to a visible terminal and I didn't want to increase the risk. I hit F10 and powered off, the restarted and tried to boot into my normal login as user alan. The process produced the following sequence (a new response, never seen before)

User's $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored. This prevents the default session and language from being saved. File should be owned by user and have 644 permisions. User's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by other users.

<long pause>

Could not update ICEauthority file /home/alan/ICEauthority

[Log Out] button

<prompted for new login. Tried new user I created a couple of days back 'testuser'. All worked fine>

Hope this provides the information you were trying to get.

As an aside: The problem I had before, not having Ctrl-Alt-F2 work, was due to Dell not using a keyboard control I have been used to for years. The F2 key has another function on it, and you have to use Fn F2, sort of like the shift key, to get the F2 option. I'm used to having the Fn keys be the default, not thte "custom" options. Grrr! Thanks for "pushing" the issue, so I tried again.

AlanH

[austin.texas]

Progress! More specifically
I logged in as root, opened the Terminal successfully, and typed the above. Here is the capture of the sequence
alan-Inspiron-3451 ~ # chown -R $USER:$USER /home/alan
alan-Inspiron-3451 ~ #
As you can see, the command produced no output.

That command will produce no output in the terminal.
But I don't think I ever recommended that you log in as root. I always said "log in as the administrative user".
That is not root. In your case, that is alan - the user who has "sudo" rights.
My original instructions:

Do Ctrl-Alt-F2
Log in as the administrative user.
Enter:

Code: Select all

sudo chown  -R $USER:$USER  /home/yourusername

I then proceeded with your later instruction
4.) Boot to the Grub menu. Type "e" for Edit. Go to the line that starts with "linux".

No, Alan.
I listed 4 ways to do it. You only have to do one of them. Number 4 is not necessary if Number 1 worked.

I hit F10 and powered off, the restarted and tried to boot into my normal login as user alan. The process produced the following sequence (a new response, never seen before)

User's $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored. This prevents the default session and language from being saved. File should be owned by user and have 644 permisions. User's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by other users.
Could not update ICEauthority file /home/alan/ICEauthority
[Log Out] button
<prompted for new login. Tried new user I created a couple of days back 'testuser'. All worked fine>

The errors that you see are because you logged in as root, instead of the administrative user (alan).
Here is what happened.
You logged in as root, and ran the command I gave you.
chown -R $USER:$USER /home/alan
" $USER " tells the operating system to use the name of the current user.
If you are logged in as alan, and run that command with sudo, the OS reads it as
sudo chown -R alan:alan /home/alan
But, logged in as root, the OS reads it as
chown -R root:root /home/alan
So now all files in your /home/alan are owned by root.
alan cannot log in.
If you can, in fact, log in as root, you can fix it with the command

Code: Select all

chown -R alan:alan /home/alan

If you cannot log in as root, then you have to boot the live Mint DVD or USB.
Running the Mint DVD, in the file manager, right-click on /home/alan on the installed Mint > Open in Terminal
Do not open a terminal any other way. You have to right-click on alan.
In the terminal, enter the sudo command:

Code: Select all

sudo chown -R alan:alan ../alan

There are 2 .. in front of /alan in the command.

[AlanH]

Hi again.

Tried to respond last couple of days, but forum was down. No problem from this end. Hope it didn't cause any for you.

Back to the thread topic...

That command will produce no output in the terminal.
But I don't think I ever recommended that you log in as root. I always said "log in as the administrative user".
That is not root. In your case, that is alan - the user who has "sudo" rights.

I included the "response" prompt for completeness, in case there was any output.

I don't think you recommended logging in as root either, but I didn't realize there was a distinction between admin user and root. Lesson learned1
The problem at this stage was I couldn't log in as alan, so had to try to correct my error. The good news is I managed to do so, and can now log in as alan again.

No, Alan.
I listed 4 ways to do it. You only have to do one of them. Number 4 is not necessary if Number 1 worked.

I though this was four sequential steps, not alternates. However, the last one did seem like a duplicate, so I did what I described in the previous note. (I hit F10...)
To make a long (and basically irrelevant) story short, I have managed to get back to being able to log in as alan, The permissions on the error files indicated in my last note are now as shown here:

alan-Inspiron-3451 ~ # ls -l /home/alan/.dmrc
-rw------- 1 alan alan 29 Dec 3 15:19 /home/alan/.dmrc
alan-Inspiron-3451 ~ # ls -l /home/alan/.ICEauthority
-rw------- 1 alan alan 37698 Dec 3 15:19 /home/alan/.ICEauthority
alan-Inspiron-3451 ~ #

I actually had fixed the user / group problem before your note as you suggested (using the -R option, to be clear), but thanks for the explanation. I might just as easily been having trouble with this.

So I am back to the initial posting problem. I can log in as alan, but still can't see the desktop icons or the contents of the Terminal window if I do so. My understanding now is that the hypothesis of some files having corrupted permissions as the source of the missing icons has been eliminated. Further comments or suggestions are, of course, still welcome, especially if my understanding isn't right. If nothing else I've learned a few things along the way, and hope other viewers have too.

In hindsight I should have checked the "hardware" list before getting the DELL 3451, but hindsight is 20/20. The touchpad isn't working either, but I'll start a new thread for that if I decide to pursue it. For the moment the missing icons are the biggest problem.

AlanH

[AlanH]

It seems this is a mystery to all, but I do want to thank everyone for their consideration and attempts to help, especially austin.texas and ,earlier, Cosmo.

I won't be checking the thread routinely from now on, but I have set the "Notify me when a reply is posted" flag below, so any further replies should still reach me. If I do find the cause of the problem I'll post it.

Season's wishes to all from Calgary, Canada.

AlanH

[Cosmo.]

The situation appears at now as this:

The problem is placed in the user account, as the result with the test account showed.
It doesn't seem to be a permission problem (as far as I can see from here). So it is somewhere else.

I see 2 ways to solve the problem:

#1: Use the test account or create another account; make sure, that this account gets member of the group sudo.
Go into this account and copy (don't move!) from the old account all non-hidden files and all files in non-hidden folders.
You might probably need also some files from hidden folders, but in this case you should tell us, what you need and we can give advice. Most likely you will want to have your old firefox profile and your thunderbird profile. This is no problem: Copy the hidden folders .mozilla and .thunderbird, but delete the already existing folders in the new account beforehand; also make sure, that both programs are closed during the copy operation.

#2: The trial and error method:
Go into the old account and rename the hidden folders .config and .local in your home. Those are the most suspicious folders for the culprit of the problem. When done, log off immediately and log in again. If this doesn't help, delete the hidden folder .cache and do a new log in again. If this still doesn't solve the problem, we will see, which files and folders follow next.
Also report back in case of success. In this case we will see, what you can preserve from the renamed folders.

[AlanH]

Log of Dell Diagnostic Procedures Dec 8

Hi again Cosmo! Your new response was a bit of a surprise.

As an aside: I didn't get an e-mail notice of your posting despite having checked the box on my last one. Could be part of the problems they had last week. I happened to log in to see if my last note was posted, and saw yours in the process.

On to the central thread: I followed your suggested option #2 (Dec 6) , but, summarily, it didn't resolve the problem. Here is a log of the precise steps I took. All logins were under the problematic user name alan.

1) login with normal boot. Result: no icons. Confirmed the problem is still there.
2) restart with recovery boot. Result: icons show. Again, this confirms past behaviour.
-renamed .config to .configX
3) restart with normal boot. Result: no icons.
-deleted new .config
-renamend .configX to .config
-renamend .local to .localX
4) restart with normal boot. Result: no icons.
-deleted new .local
-renamed .localX to .local
-renamed .cache to .cacheX
5) restart with normal boot. Result: no icons. Mouse doesn't work either.
-deleted new .cache
-renamed .cacheX to .cache.
6) restart with normal boot. Result: no icons. Mouse works.
7)restart with recovery boot. Result: icons present. No mouse (?)
-tried uplugging usb mouse, waiting 10 seconds, re-plugged. Still no mouse.

You may have wanted me to disable .config and .local at the same time, but I wasn't sure, so I did the above in the hope it would save a step in isolating the problem. Please ask again if you actually wanted a simultaneous disabling of both.

Re the mouse problem. I noticed this only because I couldn't use it, and may not have picked up all the failures. This failure isn't normal under a normal or recovery boot. I've had it happen before, but can't recall the exact sequences that cause it. Don't worry about it, unless it provides useful information to the main thread.

Hope this is what you were after.

I understand there is an immanent new release of Mint coming as an upgrade, already released as a download. It might be easier to reinstall, which I will do eventually anyway, in the hope it might clear the problem. If we get it going before I could just use the upgrade route to accomplish this.

I'll keep checking the forum for responses, since e-mail notification isn't working, until you run out of patience or ideas (whichever comes first ) In the meantime I do appreciate your persistence.

AlanH

[Cosmo.]

You may have wanted me to disable .config and .local at the same time, but I wasn't sure, so I did the above in the hope it would save a step in isolating the problem. Please ask again if you actually wanted a simultaneous disabling of both.

Yes, rename both together. (But I admit, I don't have much hope, that this solves anything).

BTW: Restarting is not necessary for those tests, logging off and back in is enough.

There is another possibility to find the culprit, but it needs a bit more work:
Again create a fresh test account.
Log off the main account and log into the new test account.
Now copy (not move!) from the main account all hidden files and folders to the new account. (The non-hidden objects have no effect.)
Immediately log off and back into the test account. I expect that the problem is now here also.

Now create a new non-hidden folder in the test account, name it parking.
Then move all hidden files and folders of the test account into parking. Log off and back in, the problem should be gone again.
Now you can in single parts copy the hidden files and folders (take them in small groups) back to the original place. At some point the problem should come back after a new logging in. With this method you should be able to encircle the responsible object.

[AlanH]

Hi again,

Summary: your hope being minimal was justified. The problem persists.

For the record: here is the latest log of activity:

1) started using recovery. Results: icons show (consistent with history)
-rename .config to .configX and .local to .localX
-logged out and back in. Icons still show.
2) restarted using recovery mode. Result: icons show (consistent with history)
3) restarted using normal mode. Result: icons don't show (consistent with history)
4) restarted using recovery mode. Result: icons show.
-upgraded to Rosa.
5) restarted using normal mode. Result: icons don't show.
-checked Settings / System Info. Shows Rosa.
6) restarted using recovery mode. Results: icons show.
-deleted .localX and .configX

Your "one by one" suggestion is a good idea, but I want to make a bootable USB of Rosa for security (backup) reasons anyway, and I have a problem with a missing efi partition associated with the Ubuntu OS on the drive. It would appear to be easier to wipe the Rosa partition in the process of fixing the Ubuntu auxiliary efi problem, and do a clean install of Rosa from the USB drive. With any luck that will clear whatever is wrong with no more effort. We won't know what the problem was, but if it re-occurs as I reinstall software I'll have a better idea of what is causing it.

For possible future use: Since the normal and recovery boots yield different results it still seems to me a comparison of the boot scripts might provide some useful information. But I don't know where they are. Also, if there is any way to capture the recovery boot display as it scrolls by there might be useful information there. I saw a "failed" message a couple of times, but I don't know what the associated command was because it scrolled past. Can the capture be done? Do you know where the scripts are?

BTW, I got a mail notification of your last message. That system appears to be working now.

Thanks again for your help. Excellent suggestions, and great patience...what more can one ask for? Austin.texas deserves the same comment too.

AlanH

[AlanH]

Post mortem wrap up.

Good news. The problematic situation has been resolved. It didn't turn out as hoped, but is certainly a satisfactory situation. Here's a wrap up, in case anyone is interested.

I downloaded the 17.3 Cinnamon iso file and used it to create a USB stick using unetbootin. I then installed it three times. By way of context, the machine involved already had Ubuntu 14.04 on it, which I tried to preserve. That is, I was trying to set it up as a dual boot machine.

First: I tried to control the partition setup manually. I didn't manage to clear a "missing efi partition" problem with Ubuntu, so proceeded to the second install of Rosa.

Second: I tried to let the Rosa install control manage the partitions, by selecting the "side by side" option with Ubuntu. When done I couldn't even boot the machine from the hard drive. Tinkering with the BIOS setup didn't help.

Third: I selected the "wipe disk" option, thus wiping the dual boot from the machine. That worked fine in all respects. I then installed several software packages using the Software Manager, and everything worked and is working as expected. Yeah! No missing icons!

The problem I mentioned in passing in an earlier note, that of the touchpad not working, remains. It worked under Ubuntu, but I have now lost any access to Ubuntu scripts that might have helped in resolving the problem.

The main problem in these trials seemed to be related to the efi partitioning, with resulting misplacement of the GRUB control. My attempts to re-configure the BIOS setup to match whatever is needed didn't solve the problems. In other words, setting up for a dual boot appears problematic. My biggest problem here was missing theory...I have very little understanding of how this is supposed to work despite reading related material on line and in a Linux book.

At this point I had the confidence to trust the upgrade procedure enough to risk it on my main desktop as well, It went beautifully, total success.

A couple of comments on the install.

1) the iso install includes quite a bit of time downloading language packs when it is used. My impression is these are for languages other than the one selected, in which case it is unlikely I will ever use or need them. Perhaps these redundant packages could be made optional during the installation initialization? It would save quite a bit of internet transfer overhead, both size and time.

2) the upgrade from 17.2 through the Software Manager was a real treat as upgrades go. It went very fast, and worked flawlessly. "Well done" to those responsible.

Hope the comment are useful.

AlanH