Salix Forums

This is strange...

I had put my computer into Suspend mode...then tried to start it up again. I got a black screen and the mouse cursor, that was it. I didn't know how to get my windows and everything back, so I turned off the computer. Then I turned it on again.

When I logged in, the Wicd Network Manager window popped up. I restarted the computer and logged in again, the same thing happened again.

This is puzzling to me not only on its face, but because I actually reinstalled Salix because of this very same behavior! I thought maybe I had inadvertently done something when it started happening on the previous Salix install. And after reinstall, the problem went away. Until this bad shutdown.

What can I do to troubleshoot this? There is no setting in the Wicd Network Manager that I am aware of that affects whether this windows pops up or not on login.

I'm using Salix as installed from the Salix Fluxbox Live CD.

Did you close all wicd windows before logging out?

Yes.

Okay, I figured it out.

I think Wicd was updated at some point after I installed Salix, at which point it was no longer compatible with a Fluxbox feature that starts apps "in the background" upon loading of Fluxbox. This is controlled by adding a space and a "&" after the name of the app in a list of "Startup" apps, as found in the ~/.fluxbox/startup file.

Wicd starting ignoring this designation, as the "&" is still there after its name in the startup file.

But Wicd has a command-line option to start in the tray, "--tray."

So I added "--tray" to the Wicd entry in Fluxbox's startup file, and now it starts in the tray as it did before.

Using & to run a command in the background doesn't do what you think it does. "Background" doesn't mean "put it in the tray". It means that the application is launched and returns execution to the launching process immediately. Open a terminal and run these two to see the difference: Return to the terminal each time without closing leafpad.

And I don't think wicd was upgraded at any point, requiring the use of a new --tray option. Probably you removed it my accident at some point.

Ah. Yes, I had noticed that Linux apps didn't normally return execution to the terminal when launched from terminal!