[SOLVED] In 14.04, the dconf-editor and gconf-editor show no entries [Archive]

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oldefoxx

May 18th, 2015, 03:18 AM

I have been struggling with getting a higher contrast theme and larger cursor size on Ubuntu 14.04. After about two weeks of plowing through online searches, I am close to settling on the contrastLarge theme I downloaded from gnome-look.com. The problem left is the resizing, because none of the posts I've gone through work for me. If anybody knows how to make this work, you have my attention.

But the reason for this post is to make the point that dconf-editor and gconf-editor fail to populate any fields when they open up. Therefore you can't do anything with them. Take dconf-editor for example: All I see with it are a column in the left panel that read "apps, ca, com, desktop, org, system" vertically. For none of these is anything displayed under :Name" or "Value" iin the right panel. And I have used apt-get install to reinstall dconf-tools.

Then I try gconf-editor, and it dairs almost as badly. In the left panel I see "/, apps, desktop, schemas, system", and nothing in the right panel at all. Under system in the left panel I can open up a subfolder named gstreamer, which itself has two subfolders,one named 0.10 and the other 1.0. And under 0.10 you have a folder named default, and under 1,0 you have audio

And that's it. I have no chance of seeing if either -editor can help me in my goals.

Oh, yes. I can report a complaint from the terminal window when dconf-editor tries to do its thing:

$ dconf-editor &
[1] 3045
oldefoxx@Don-gm5661e:~$
** (dconf-editor:3045): WARNING **: dconf-schema.vala:330: Unknown property on <schema>, extends

** (dconf-editor:3045): WARNING **: dconf-schema.vala:330: Unknown property on <schema>, extends

Not much else to say at this point. I;m looking for a workaround or fix. Thanks for any help.

Dennis N

May 18th, 2015, 04:35 AM

But the reason for this post is to make the point that dconf-editor and gconf-editor fail to populate any fields when they open up. Therefore you can't do anything with them. Take dconf-editor for example: All I see with it are a column in the left panel that read "apps, ca, com, desktop, org, system" vertically. For none of these is anything displayed under :Name" or "Value" iin the right panel. And I have used apt-get install to reinstall dconf-tools.

You need to click on the little triangles to the left of each category - its like a directory tree. Repeat and you will soon reach the actual settings.

Dennis N

May 18th, 2015, 06:20 AM

This stuff is much easier if you use a different desktop environment than Unity. I used Ubuntu MATE, tried your cursor, and just needed to click on it in the cursor selections. Worked immediately - everywhere. No need for things like dconf-editor, gsettings, and galternatives.

monkeybrain20122

May 18th, 2015, 09:27 AM

You probably want to check out the unity-tweak-tool. http://sourcedigit.com/8266-15-powerful-unity-tweak-tool-customizations-ubuntu-14-04/

About dconf-editor, if you click on the categories on the left the sub categories will appear, eventually you will see the values on the right side.

Dennis N

May 18th, 2015, 02:40 PM

The problem left is the resizing, because none of the posts I've gone through work for me. If anybody knows how to make this work, you have my attention.

The contrastLarge cursor may not be resizable. Not all cursors are. When installed in the old gnome 2 desktop of Ubuntu 8.04, the slider for resizing is greyed out (inoperable), while others like DMZ-White, DMZ-Black, Redglass and Whiteglass are resizable with the slider tool. See attached images from Ubuntu 8.04.

(In fact, DMZ-White can be made larger than contrastLarge by resizing. It has the same style, using a thick black border on the cursors. Assuming resizing is still an option for cursors in today's Ubuntu.)

oldefoxx

May 18th, 2015, 09:49 PM

I know how to click on objects in the left side panel to get them to expand and open up so you can see the contents, which would be subfolders in the left side panel, or other objects having names and values that would then be displayed in the right side panel. How do you think I got down to the subfolders when trying to use gconf-editor?

It's not working on my machine, which is a Toshiba Satellite L355 laptop.

Mate, eh? I wasn't insisting on Metacity, but it came as part of my efforts to get back to the classical view of the gnome desktop. It's so much handier when exploring what you have. I've also tried gnome-tweak-tool and currently have unity-tweak-tool installed.

As to resizing the cursor, none of the approaches I've been advised to try have resulted in a resizing of the cursor, except for actually replacing the cursor theme with a larger cursor theme, which has proven to be extremely awkward and uncertain at best. There was one page I recall (but don't recall how I got there) where you had a checkbox in the lower left corner where you could check it dor Large Cursors. Had no effect that I recall, but I can'r find my way back there. Oh there it is, in unity-tweak-tools (done as a terminal line command).

Galternatives comes closest to giving me a choice screen when it comes to cursors for x-cursor-theme (short of using terminal commands), but nothing there about sizing. There was a YouTube video on setting the x-cursor size in a hidden file, file you create with a text editor like gedit named ~/.Xdefaults.(this is in your home folder). I currently have that set at 36. That file incidently was discussed in the readme file that came in the contrastLarge download.

There is a problem with contrastLarge's name, in that it cannot be entered for copy or anything because it does not match what you see visually. I had to copy and paste it's name from the displayed dir (or ls) command in the terminal window, or go under properties (right click) on the folder of that name and copy its name as it appears there.

The most complete sequence of steps I found for adding a downloaded cursor theme to your range of choices was provided by grumblebum2 in this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2221942
This thread is also valuable since it covers the use of symbolic links (made with ln -s in a terminal): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2235265&page=2
(http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2235265&page=2)
Okay, I found the thread I wanted to pass on related to symbolic links for cursor themes: http://askubuntu.com/questions/472137/unable-to-re-size-cursor-on-14-04

This thread is suppose to be about why dconf-editor and gconf-editor are not working at all for me, not about cursor issues. But with neither one working, I have a real problem figuring how to adjust my cursor size, so it all ties together. And what is my problem may be another's problem as well. There was a link I found earlier about creating two symbolic links in two of the direcories under /usr/share/icons/, one in the default subfolder and the other in the directory (actually a subdirector of that named cursors) and for the symlink name of cursors, but I can't find the source again. Hey, I found it: http://askubuntu.com/questions/472137/unable-to-re-size-cursor-on-14-04. This change immediately preceeded the constant change of one cursor for another, and so I guess it was important, which is why I was trying to find the post again. I found a similar one for a different linux distro:
sudo ln -s /usr/share/icons/your-ptreferred-theme-name/ default

Okay one more question about cursor resizing befor I let go of this post: If you pick a cursor theme that comes in multiple sizes, how do you adjust there for size? I can't find anywhere that this point is discussed. And how do you know if a gicen cursor theme can be scaled or not? Okay, that make it two questions, right? But who's counting? Nope. Make it four.

oldefoxx

May 19th, 2015, 07:01 AM

Okay, you apparently don't believe me about dconf-editor or gconf-editor. Well, I offer some screenshots as evidence. Now I can get stuff to show uo in gconf-editor's right pane, but nothing there seems to relatr to either cursor theme or size, but at least it populates the right side, based on what I select on the left side.

But dconf-editor is a different story, and I show what gets reported in the terminal window as well. Maybe this will help someone understand what is going on.

You know, I am an invalid retiree, and can't afford much. So I was very pleased to find a site like pCloud that offers free file storage, as long as you don't get greedy.

My 'Stuff' folder on my pCloud virtual drive (https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=kZWcKXZJTEuq3FVfpR47FOHFg4jpF70D9w7#fold er=29691541)

I now have a url link that others can access for downloading images and other files, and I want to see how that works out in practice here. Let me try that next, then I will edit this post to add more to it.

Ah, I did not get quite the results I was going for. I have to provide a url from where the image file can be drawn, but I can't add the image file name to the path reference I get from pCloud, so the best I can do is just provide a link to the folder, and leave it to those interested as to whether they choose to download them (mark the checkboxes by each one, then choose Download Selected above), or they may just want to view them where they are (double-click on the one to be seen). You can also begin your own free (unless you choose otherwise) account with pCloud and copy the files to that account.

So the image option does me no good on these forums because I have no web host to provide a downlink from, but this is a good workaround. And I can set up one folder and give a single link to it, and you can pick and choose which files to make use of from that one link. Not a bad way to go. So see what you can tell me from my efforts.

steeldriver

May 19th, 2015, 12:32 PM

I think what you are seeing is normal: there are just no schemas at the top level - and (on my system) only a couple at the second level:

org.onboard
org.compiz

Everything else is at level 3 or below i.e. something.something.something or something.something.something.something

The error messages when dconf-editor is run from a terminal are also 'normal' - usually people run from the dash and so don't see them

I haven't trawled back through the thread to see exactly what issue you are having, but on my system there are some cursor configuration options under org.gnome.desktop.interface :

262063

On your image issues, you should be able to attach image files to your posts directly using the 'Manage Attachments' button in the 'Additional Options' pane of the advanced post editor.

Dennis N

May 19th, 2015, 02:10 PM

I have found that the newest Xubuntu 15.04 now handles resizable cursors correctly. Below is a screenshot of the cursor over the forum editor window with redglass at maximum size. The setting is easy in the Mouse and Touchpad settings under the Theme tab.

262068

In the past, I know this resizing of cursors in Xubuntu did not work correctly. A discussion from 2014 is here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2232013

I've been using and testing this giant red cursor now for a half-hour or so and see no reversions or cursor switches.

So if you are willing to go the extra mile and switch desktop environment, this could be your answer.

Dennis N

May 19th, 2015, 02:45 PM

One more screenshot - whiteglass over the cursor dialog. At its largest size.

262066

Added comment:
This correct implementation of resizable cursors is not evident in a Xubuntu 14.04.1 system with the upgrades to xfce 4.12. I needed to use Xubuntu 15.04 to get the correct handling.

oldefoxx

May 19th, 2015, 07:04 PM

Well, whatever is "normal" is not working for me. I will respond to each post in turn in a minute. First, I want to see if I can get an image from my new pCloud account to come up:
[IMG]https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=XZNAlXZKGjhEpT0UwHY9muMSr8mWFqLFFck[/IMG
No, that failed. So let's go with the linking process again:
Screenshot of my desktop, with contrastLarge cursor displayed:
(https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=XZNAlXZKGjhEpT0UwHY9muMSr8mWFqLFFck)Sinc e it is a link, you have to click on it to see it. But this allows for individual files to be referenced. The problem with pCloud's approach is that it does not pass on to Ubuntu Forums the type of file that is involved (no .png extension), so Ubuntu Forums's software does not know what to make of the file that the IMG tag is providing. Okay, let's get to the individual posts.

You need to click on the little triangles to the left of each category - its like a directory tree. Repeat and you will soon reach the actual settings.
Doesn't work on my machine. NOTHING shows up in the right pane, regardless of what I click on, if I am trying to use dconf-editor. Does work with gconf-editor, but I can't find anything related to cursor there.

This stuff is much easier if you use a different desktop environment than Unity. I used Ubuntu MATE, tried your cursor, and just needed to click on it in the cursor selections. Worked immediately - everywhere. No need for things like dconf-editor, gsettings, and galternatives.
Hey, every environment has unfriendly spots. Why start over eith another? I'm putting up cautionary flages for one found in, what appears to be, dconf-tools (or Metacity, or whatever, or a combo of two or more). If I knew specifically what was wrong, I could open a bug report. But I don't. All I can do is call attention to it.

Re: In 14.04, the dconf-editor and gconf-editor show no entries

You probably want to check out the unity-tweak-tool. http://sourcedigit.com/8266-15-power...-ubuntu-14-04/

About dconf-editor, if you click on the categories on the left the sub categories will appear, eventually you will see the values on the right side.

Doen't work. Doen't work. Doesn't work. Forget what you suppose it should do. Focus either on what it doesn't do, or suggest a work-around (but not requiring a change in the environment, which I am not presently interest in doing).

(In fact, DMZ-White can be made larger than contrastLarge by resizing. It has the same style, using a thick black border on the cursors. Assuming resizing is still an option for cursors in today's Ubuntu.)
So far I'ce seen mention of cursor themes that can be resized, but other than using dconf-editor *which is not working for me), no mention of how to do this. There is a post on resizing a cursor using a terminal command, but it did not work in my case, and I have not been able to track it doen again.

Re: In 14.04, the dconf-editor and gconf-editor show no entries

I think what you are seeing is normal: there are just no schemas at the top level - and (on my system) only a couple at the second level:

Code:

org.onboard
org.compiz

Everything else is at level 3 or below i.e. something.something.something or something.something.something.something

The error messages when dconf-editor is run from a terminal are also 'normal' - usually people run from the dash and so don't see them

I haven't trawled back through the thread to see exactly what issue you are having, but on my system there are some cursor configuration options under org.gnome.desktop.interface :

If dconf-editor isn't doing its proper thing (my reason for this thread), then how do I deal with something like "org.onboard? and "org.compiz"? I HAVE no sublevels in dconf-editor to get to.

I have found that the newest Xubuntu 15.04 now handles resizable cursors correctly. Below is a screenshot of the cursor over the forum editor window with redglass at maximum size. The setting is easy in the Mouse and Touchpad settings under the Theme tab.
In my setup this is all I find in places that seem sort of likely for menu control of appearances, which would sort of fit. But only unity-tweak-tools shows anything closely related, since dconf-editor isn't doing its job on my pc.

n your image issues, you should be able to attach image files to your posts directly using the 'Manage Attachments' button in the 'Additional Options' pane of the advanced post editor.
Now THAT tip is worth knowing. So much for the limits of usinf the IMG option. I mwade 5ive thumbnails for inclusion, so you all can see what I am seeing (or not seeing as the case may be).

deadflowr

May 19th, 2015, 08:04 PM

Can you use dconf cli?
what does

dconf list /
show?
output should look something like:

com/
system/
org/
apps/
ca/
desktop/

If that shows up, then we can assume the problem lies in the gui...

oldefoxx

May 19th, 2015, 08:33 PM

oldefoxx

May 19th, 2015, 08:35 PM

Can you use dconf cli?
what does

dconf list /
show?
output should look something like:

com/
system/
org/
apps/
ca/
desktop/

If that shows up, then we can assume the problem lies in the gui...
I tried a thumbnail of the terminal window, which shows exactly what it is what you said it should. Now when you say the problem lies in the GUI, would you hazard a guess as to how they may be related?
Incidently, the Manage Attachments feature seems to allow no way to delete or remove a thumbnail once selected

oldefoxx

May 19th, 2015, 11:51 PM

Hmmm. I somehow got entangled here, and somehow ended up posting two responses, one with the wrong thumbnail in it. I guess I will leave the second (and wrong) one to illustrate that once you designate a thumbnail, you are stuck with it.

Big thing though I I finally tracked down an email that covers setting the desktop cursor theme and size. I will provide the link here, as it does a better job than I can at explaining matters.
Resizing Cursor (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2048046&page=7&p=12994288#post12994288)

Okay. I am going to include a snapshot of my desktop with most of the related screens displayed, hopefully to help others. If you have downloaded a cursor theme, and it probably comes as a compressed (or zipped) file which has an extension like .zip, .bz2, or .tgz. Don't worry, the Archive Manager will know how to deal with its contents for you. Just double click on the file, which will likely be in your Home Folder under subfolder Downloads.

Pick the cursor theme that you want to work with and have the Archive Manager extract it for you someplace convenient, Like into Home Folder or maybe your Desktop, or create a new folder first, which you might name "themes", in case you later want to try other choices. You can rather begin Nautilus (the file manager in Ubuntu) with root privileges and extract directly to /usr/share/icons, which is home to most od the cursaor theme options available. To do this, you need to open a terminal window and use the command "sudo". You can either do it by typing "sudo nautilus", or by typing "sudo -s", enter your password, then entering "nautilus" seperately.

I've included a thumbnail, an example appears in the purple terminal window near the top center of the screen. I need to copy the extracted (not the compressed) folder and file contents to /usr/share/icons. You can't get there as a regular user, which is why you restarted Nautilus with root privileges. If you extracted there to start with, or hav now copied/moved the extracted folder there, you are about ready to add this theme to your range of choices for designating a cursor theme.

There are apparently several ways of getting a new cursor theme installed, and one thing that is required seems to be to ensure that the new folder has a text file named "cursor.theme" in it. You create this by right clicking a clear spot in the displayed folder and chosing "New Document". Or you can use a text editor, such as under Administrator (or asking for one under Dash, (the topmost symbol in the vertical tree on the left side of your displayed Desktop) or even using a suitable command in a terminal window, such as "gedit" or "nano". You can even use LibreOffice, but that is overkill. Whatever way suits you best. Heck, you can even just copy an existing cursor.theme file from another cursor folder over, (such as from" DMZ-White" or "DMZ-Black" then edit it to make necessary changes. Info on what to have in cursor.theme is covered in quite a few places, so we will skip on that.

Now the rest of the thumbnail story (as displayed by several opened windows) is finding Applications >> System Tools >> Administration >> Alternatives Configurator. The thumbnails shows this as a sequence of gray menus where the orange bars progressively bring you to the sought application. This is also known as galternatives, if you want to type it into the terminal as a manual command. You have to enter your password again then to allow changes in your systtem at a fundamental level. Then in the left pane side, you press "x" on your keyboard, and it takes you right to x-cursor-theme. The right pane will then populate with any themes that have been previously identified as such to the system. Your new one will not be there, so you have to click on the Add button on the bottom. A small dialog box comes up on the left side, but may be covered over by the main window, so you may have to drag this to the right to uncover the small boc. There it wants a path to the new cursor theme, so you can browse for it. The new screen that opens up wants you to pick a directory to begin your search from. The displayed default is /home/[user name] since you are logged in as sudo (root priveleges), you can pick the slternative od "/", which is the root directory. From there you want to step up to /usr, then /share, then /icons, then to your new cursor theme folder, which we will assume for the moment to be /HighContrast. You need to find cursor.theme in the right column before you stop. Then click on that name, and finally click on OK in that window, shown overlapping the terminal window on the right side, then set your oriority and click OK again in the small window. But you won't see the new cursor theme added to the remaining window. Maybe it takes a logout, then login for the change to take place. Let's give that a try next. I will be back.

Nope. Logging out then back in did not work. Doing a restart did not help either. It looks like galternatives is not working right, along with dconf-editor. No addition to the x-config-theme choices occurred. I did some research, and found thid from grumblebug2 on another thread. I highlighted part of it for your benefit:

You need to add your theme to and select with alternatives.
Normally here I would use galternatives (GUI for alternatives) but doesn't seem to work in 14.04 so need to use terminal.

Open a terminal and enter (use the same terminal for all commands as the first command is a variable and will be lost once terminal is closed)
Code:

CURSOR=<NAME OF THEME>

eg in this example I would use

code:
CURSOR=ComixCursors-Opaque-Slim-Orange

Then copy and paste and run the following commands one at a time.
The second gsettings command does the same as using a tweak tool to change cursor so no need to use a tweak tool as well.

Code:
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme 20
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "$CURSOR" && sudo update-alternatives --set x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme

You need to logout to complete the change.

Note grumblebug2 indicated thatgalternatives is not working in Ubuntu 14.04, not just one of the environments.

My thanks to grumblebug2 for these insights. Playing around with gsettings and update-alternatives, I found these two other options:

root@Don-gm5661e:~# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'contrastlarge'
root@Don-gm5661e:~# update-alternatives --list x-cursor-theme
/etc/X11/cursors/core.theme
/etc/X11/cursors/handhelds.theme
/etc/X11/cursors/redglass.theme
/etc/X11/cursors/whiteglass.theme
/usr/share/icons/DMZ-Black/cursor.theme
/usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursor.theme
/usr/share/icons/FlatbedCursors.White.Large/cursor.theme
/usr/share/icons/FlatbedCursors.White.Large/index.theme
/usr/share/icons/contrastl

Working my way through these options, I end up doing the following in a terminal window:

root@Don-gm5661e:~# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'contrastlarge'
root@Don-gm5661e:~# update-alternatives --list x-cursor-theme
/etc/X11/cursors/core.theme
/etc/X11/cursors/handhelds.theme
/etc/X11/cursors/redglass.theme
/etc/X11/cursors/whiteglass.theme
/usr/share/icons/DMZ-Black/cursor.theme
/usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursor.theme
/usr/share/icons/FlatbedCursors.White.Large/cursor.theme
/usr/share/icons/FlatbedCursors.White.Large/index.theme
/usr/share/icons/contrastlarge/cursor.theme
root@Don-gm5661e:~# CURSOR=HighContrast
root@Don-gm5661e:~# update-alternatives --install /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme 20
root@Don-gm5661e:~# gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "$CURSOR" && sudo update-alternatives --set x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme
update-alternatives: using /usr/share/icons/HighContrast/cursor.theme to provide /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme (x-cursor-theme) in manual mode
root@Don-gm5661e:~# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'HighContrast'
root@Don-gm5661e:~# update-alternatives --list x-cursor-theme
/etc/X11/cursors/core.theme
/etc/X11/cursors/handhelds.theme
/etc/X11/cursors/redglass.theme
/etc/X11/cursors/whiteglass.theme
/usr/share/icons/DMZ-Black/cursor.theme
/usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursor.theme
/usr/share/icons/FlatbedCursors.White.Large/cursor.theme
/usr/share/icons/FlatbedCursors.White.Large/index.theme
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/cursor.theme
/usr/share/icons/contrastlarge/cursor.theme
root@Don-gm5661e:~#

Now you not only see HighContrast added to the cursor theme choices, you see it selected. Using galternatives again,(The process in the first snapshot), we find HighContrast added to the x-cursor-thems and it is now designated as our cursor of choice. It should just take a logout and login to make it happen.

HighContrast was picked for a reason. If, as sudo, you do the following:
root@Don-gm5661e:~# dir /usr/share/icons/HighContrast
16x16 22x22 24x24 256x256 32x32 48x48 cursor.theme cursor.theme~ icon-theme.cache index.theme scalable
root@Don-gm5661e:~#
Note the first six and the last items listed. These suggest fixed resizings of HighContrast, and a final rescaling of the cursor size. But if I do the following:
root@Don-gm5661e:~# dir /usr/share/icons/HighContrast/*x*
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/index.theme

/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/16x16:
actions apps categories devices emblems emotes mimetypes places status

/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/22x22:
actions apps categories devices emblems emotes mimetypes places status

/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/24x24:
actions apps categories devices emblems emotes mimetypes places status

/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/256x256:
actions apps categories devices emblems emotes mimetypes places status

/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/32x32:
actions apps categories devices emblems emotes mimetypes places status

/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/48x48:
actions animations apps categories devices emblems emotes mimetypes places status stock
root@Don-gm5661e:~# dir /usr/share/icons/HighContrast/scalable
actions actions-extra apps apps-extra categories devices emblems emotes mimetypes places places-extra status status-extra
root@Don-gm5661e:~#
I don't see anything in those folders that seem to have anything to do with cursors.

Oh, I was going to use another snapshot or two, but the Attachment Manager showed itself incapable of doing so. It got stuck where you can't add, remove, or make any changes. Apparently the five thumbnails limit applies to a whole thread, not just your most recent post, and I've exceeded my limit.

oldefoxx

May 20th, 2015, 05:00 AM

There is another matter, of how to rid yourself of a cursor them once you deside it is not for you. I discovered accidently that renaming a folder or removing it eill cause the softwre to delete references to it when you do an update using the tools in my last post. There is also the suggestion of a way to do this by asking for --help:
root@Don-gm5661e:~# update-alternatives --help
Usage: update-alternatives [<option> ...] <command>

Commands:
--install <link> <name> <path> <priority>
[--slave <link> <name> <path>] ...
add a group of alternatives to the system.
--remove <name> <path> remove <path> from the <name> group alternative.
--remove-all <name> remove <name> group from the alternatives system.
--auto <name> switch the master link <name> to automatic mode.
--display <name> display information about the <name> group.
--query <name> machine parseable version of --display <name>.
--list <name> display all targets of the <name> group.
--get-selections list master alternative names and their status.
--set-selections read alternative status from standard input.
--config <name> show alternatives for the <name> group and ask the
user to select which one to use.
--set <name> <path> set <path> as alternative for <name>.
--all call --config on all alternatives.

<link> is the symlink pointing to /etc/alternatives/<name>.
(e.g. /usr/bin/pager)
<name> is the master name for this link group.
(e.g. pager)
<path> is the location of one of the alternative target files.
(e.g. /usr/bin/less)
<priority> is an integer; options with higher numbers have higher priority in
automatic mode.

Options:
--altdir <directory> change the alternatives directory.
--admindir <directory> change the administrative directory.
--log <file> change the log file.
--force allow replacing files with alternative links.
--skip-auto skip prompt for alternatives correctly configured
in automatic mode (relevant for --config only)
--verbose verbose operation, more output.
--quiet quiet operation, minimal output.
--help show this help message.
--version show the version.
root@Don-gm5661e:~# I highlighted the commands that seem most important here. I also underscored the --remove command, to eliminate a cursor theme by name from the x-cursor-theme group.

There is another question, of what should go in the cursor.theme file? I suggested starting with an existing cursor.theme file and making necessary changes, which mostly means two lines:
root@Don-gm5661e:~# cat /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursor.theme
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=DMZ-White
root@Don-gm5661e:~#
Why have an "Inherits=" line? And why have the same cursor theme name here as you have for the cursor theme you are using? Because you can inherit aspects of other themes if you get inventive, and this is a way to slave one to a previous one, which itself may slave to yet another theme, and so on. By naming yourself, you simplify matters to no other theme is involved.

The whole subject of cursor themes gets very involved, as you can read about in the Icon Theme Specification. (https://developer.gnome.org/icon-theme-spec/). I'm not the guy to ask about this, as I can barely manage what I have already tackled for my own benefit. Where mouse cursor themes go, I will try to get by with ehat is already out there. So for out purposes. since we are using HighContrast in this example, I would change that to "Inherits=HighContrast". Now if this does not work out to my satisfaction, I will be using these notes to revert to contrastLarge again.

CantankRus

May 20th, 2015, 07:46 AM

oldefoxx

May 24th, 2015, 12:02 AM

When using galternatives to add a cursor theme to alternatives, you point it to the cursor.theme file of the theme.
ie /usr/share/icons/contrastlarge/cursor.theme
This file would look like this...

[Icon Theme]
Inherits=contrastlarge

galternatives has a bug in 14.04 where the GUI is non responsive.
To fix run this command...

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/update-alternatives /usr/sbin/

To change the cursor theme in Ubuntu/unity you need to select in alternatives and dconf
To change the cursor theme in Xubuntu/xfce you need to select in alternatives and xfce4-mouse-settings
The easiest way to increase the cursor size and for it to be consistent is use a cursor created with only the one large size pixel layer.
there are some large cursor themes attached to this post (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2048046&p=12735911#post12735911).

Skimmed over most of your post as you just appear to be chasing your tail.
Let's start fresh eh?
What is your terminal output for these commands:

echo $DESKTOP_SESSION

update-alternatives --query x-cursor-theme | grep "Value:"

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme

grep CursorThemeName ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xsettings.xml

Are you trying to change cursors, change the size of the default cursor or install and use a custom cursor?
If you are trying to use a custom/downloaded cursor, provide a link to the cursor theme or attach to your post.

PS: Also this from your last post....

root@Don-gm5661e:~# gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "$CURSOR" && sudo update-alternatives --set x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme
You're running everything as root. Bad habit.
The first part of that command is a user setting so your setting it for the root user not the user oldefoxx.
...and isn't HighContrast an icon theme not a cursor theme anyway.
Other parts of your post you are talking about contrastlarge which is a cursor theme.

Working as sudo saves some typing (fewer :sudo " entries) and the periodic re-entry of my password. Benjamin Franklin was also a person who favored doing things the easy or lazy way if he could. I'm the only user of this laptop, and at my age (nearly 74), I'm not likely to be that bad an influence on others (I am an invalid who rarely gets out od his recliner). But your warnings probably serve well those few that might otherwise follow my misdirections.

I guess your idea of HighContrast being something other than a cursor theme makes sense, but then it seems to be in an odd spot, crowded in with all those actual cursor themes. Just noteworthy.

My problem right now is that with all the research I've done and steps I followed, I could not get one of the three Ubuntu 14.04 installs to switch over to the ContrastLarge cursor theme. It went instead to the small black cursor at the login screen and beyond. This may have been the step I missed beforehand:
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:~# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme
'ubuntu-mono-dark'
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:~# gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme ContrastLarge
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:~# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme
'ContrastLarge'
Now I will logout and log back in and see if that is a fix or not.

oldefoxx

May 24th, 2015, 01:49 AM

The following command showed some oddball cursor theme installed. I noted that the cursor theme name was ubuntu-mono-dark'. The command was gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme..

Since it was wrong (I don't even know how it got picked), I did the following:

CURSOR=ContrastLarge
update-alternatives --install /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icon
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "$CURSOR"
s/$CURSOR/cursor.theme 20
sudo update-alternatives --set x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme

Then repeat the first command:
gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'ContrastLarge'

So now I will try to logout and login again. Nope, I still have the small, black cursor. I'm missing something here. Using unity-test-tool >> cursor, I do not find ContrastLarge listed as a cursor theme choice. I did something wrong or missed a step. Any ideas or suggestions?

What would be nice is a concise, complete list of a sequence of terminal commands to get the job done right. Remember, dconf-editor is not working correctly, so I have to get around that. And I hace it from another thread that spoke of something else, related, that did not appear to be working in 14.04. Whatever, I am not going to try and run that thread down again. But the comment was made by grumblebum2, who has contributed a lot to my present understanding of changing cursor themes. Trouble is, the information is scattered across a lot of threads.

I tried unity-tweak-tool, and it does not pick up on ContrastLarge as an available theme for the cursor. But I just used --install above to make this happen, at least for x-cursor-theme. So what do I need to do to have unity-tweak-tool recognize it? This tool does not have an Add button to work with.

Now Alternatives Configurator (galternatives) does have the ability to add, select, and delete x-cursor-theme choices, but it's not influencing unity-tweak-tool, which is dealing with a different named variable. What can I do about this?

I also have gnome-tweak-too installed (it shows up under System Tools >> preferences as Tweak Tool) and for cursor it also shows a list of cursor themes, but again the ContrastLarge theme is absent, and there seems to be no way to add it directly. You can;t choose a theme that isn;t listed, right? So we have clear evidence that si=omething is still missing. Now I just need some answers, or things to try.

CantankRus

May 24th, 2015, 04:42 AM

You are mixing up "org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme" with "org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme"
cursor themes and icon themes are both stored in /usr/share/icons
If you confirm what desktop environment you're using and either attach your custom cursor theme to the post
or provide a link to it I can give you exact commands to run.

If you just want a large white cursor for Ubuntu follow these instructions.
This will give you a 32 pixel (default is 24px) white cursor in 14.04 Ubuntu Unity.
Download the attached theme to ~/Downloads.

Run all commands one at a time as your normal user.
**Do not log in to your terminal as root or commands won't work**
Check the downloaded tar.gz is in ~/Downloads... move there if necessary.

cd ~/Downloads

tar -xvzf DMZ-White-Medium.tar.gz

sudo mv DMZ-White-Medium /usr/share/icons

CURSOR=DMZ-White-Medium

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme 20

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "$CURSOR"

sudo update-alternatives --set x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme
Log out and back in.

CantankRus

May 24th, 2015, 05:57 AM

You really should stop logging into your terminal as root.
It's not so much a security issue as you're just using it wrong and are likely to mess up your system.
You are running commands as root instead of oldefoxx and are consequently
changing and getting results for root's account.

eg

glen@Trusty:~$ gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'DMZ-White-Medium'

glen@Trusty:~$ sudo gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'DMZ-White-Medium'

glen@Trusty:~$ sudo su
[sudo] password for glen:
root@Trusty:/home/glen# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'DMZ-White'
Notice the first 2 commands both return the same result for the user "glen"
while the last command returns a different result for the user "root".

oldefoxx

May 24th, 2015, 06:47 AM

Okay, you got me, and here is what I have that confirms what you are saying:
oldefoxx@Don-Satellite-L355:~$ gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'ContrastLarge'
oldefoxx@Don-Satellite-L355:~$ sudo gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
[sudo] password for oldefoxx:
'ContrastLarge'
oldefoxx@Don-Satellite-L355:~$ sudo su
root@Don-Satellite-L355:/home/oldefoxx# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'Breeze-Contrast'
root@Don-Satellite-L355:/home/oldefoxx# gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "ContrastLarge"
root@Don-Satellite-L355:/home/oldefoxx# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'ContrastLarge'
root@Don-Satellite-L355:/home/oldefoxx#I didn't recognize the difference between BEING the superuser and just calling on superuser power for individual commands. Point well made. Still makes me wonder how my personal account login was effected if the root was set to domething other in terms of theme. I am actually running on one of the partitions where the cursor theme IS right already, so I will have to reboot and repeat all this on the affected partition. Let me do that now.
oldefoxx@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:~$ gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'whiteglass'
oldefoxx@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:~$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "ContrastLarge"
oldefoxx@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:~$ gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'ContrastLarge'
oldefoxx@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:~$ sudo gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
[sudo] password for oldefoxx:
'ContrastLarge'
oldefoxx@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:~$ sudo su
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/home/oldefoxx# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'DMZ-White'
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/home/oldefoxx# gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "ContrastLarge"
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/home/oldefoxx# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme
'ContrastLarge'Now let me get out of here and see what happens (wonder how that 'whiteglass' got in there? I haven't tried it, at least on purpose).

Nope. Still have the small black pointer as soon as the cursor shows up, even before the login screen. It naver changes. Now in my limited experience, it seems that if a cursor theme reference is found invalid for any reason (like the cursor theme folere is missing or you get the name wrong), the software falls back on another theme. I've downloaded and copued the theme folder and contents back over /usr/share/icons, but that hasn't helped. And I've checked the cursor.theme file in that folder and the index.theme file in the /usr/share/icons/default folder, and they seem to be right. What could I be missing?

oldefoxx

May 24th, 2015, 07:59 AM

So let's be superuser and see what we have now:
oldefoxx@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:~$ sudo -s
[sudo] password for oldefoxx:
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:~# cd /usr/share/icons
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir
Adwaita HighContrast
cab_extract.png Humanity
cab_view.png Humanity-Dark
ContrastLarge locolor
default LoginIcons
DMZ-Black redglass
DMZ-White ubuntu-mono-dark
FlatbedCursors.White.Large ubuntu-mono-light
FlatbedCursors.White.Regular unity-icon-theme
gnome unity-webapps-applications
handhelds whiteglass
hicolor
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cd Adwaita
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons/Adwaita# dir
cursors cursor.theme
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons/Adwaita# cat cursor.theme
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=Adwaita
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons/Adwaita# cd ..
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cat default/index.theme
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=ContrastLarge
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cat ContrastLarge/cursor.theme
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=ContrastLarge
So far it seems correct. I checked Awaita only because one poster thought it was the fallback cursor theme if the named one could not be used.

Anyway, I am going to use copy-and-paste to see if any of the ContrastLarge entries disagree with the name of that folder
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cat default/index.theme
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=ContrastLarge
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cat ContrastLarge/cursor.theme
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=ContrastLarge
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir ContrastLarge
cursors cursor.theme cursor.theme~ Readme
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cat ContrastLarge/cursor.theme
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=ContrastLarge
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir ContrastLarge
cursors cursor.theme cursor.theme~ Readme
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cat /default/index.theme
cat: /default/index.theme: No such file or directory
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cat default/index.theme
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=ContrastLarge
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir ContrastLarge
cursors cursor.theme cursor.theme~ Readme
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir /home/oldefoxx/.icons
dir: cannot access /home/oldefoxx/.icons: No such file or directory
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir /home/oldefoxx/.Xresources
/home/oldefoxx/.Xresources
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir /home/oldefoxx/.Xresources/
dir: cannot access /home/oldefoxx/.Xresources/: Not a directory
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cat /home/oldefoxx/.Xresources
Xcursor.theme: ContrastLarge
Xcursor.size: 36

root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir ContrastLarge
cursors cursor.theme cursor.theme~ Readme
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/iconOkay. I went after references to ContrastLarge, first with "cat" to get the file contents on the screen, then I did a "dir" of the copy-and-paste I copied of ContrastLarge as it appeared immediately above that point. If no problem, then the reference is spelled just as it looks.

I now need to go back and see if I set up or have ~/.icons files on my other two partitions. But I can do that without rebooting. I just have to make sure the partitions are mounted, then go theough /media/oldefoxx/sd* to access each partition individually. So lets see ehat happens.

Okay, here are the steps I followed:
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir /media/oldefoxx/
sda2 sda3
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir /media/oldefoxx/sda2/home/oldefoxx/.icons/
ContrastLarge default
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir ContrastLarge
cursors cursor.theme cursor.theme~ Readme
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir /media/oldefoxx//sda2/home/oldefoxx/.icons/ContrastLarge/
cursors cursor.theme cursor.theme~ Readme
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cat /media/oldefoxx//sda2/home/oldefoxx/.icons/ContrastLarge/cursor.theme
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=ContrastLarge
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir ContrastLarge
cursors cursor.theme cursor.theme~ Readme
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir /media/oldefoxx/sda2/home/oldefoxx/.icons/default/
index.theme index.theme~
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cat /media/oldefoxx/sda2/home/oldefoxx/.icons/default/index.theme
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=ContrastLarge
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir ContrastLarge
cursors cursor.theme cursor.theme~ Readme So there is an ~/.icon folder for the install on sda2, and maybe the simplest thing would be to copy that folder, with its contents, to the user account on this partition. I will try that now.

It's done. These are the steps I took:
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# cp -r /media/oldefoxx/sda2/home/oldefoxx/.icons /home/oldefoxx/
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir /home/oldefoxx/.icons/
ContrastLarge default
root@oldefoxx-Satellite-L355:/usr/share/icons# dir ContrastLarge
cursors cursor.theme cursor.theme~ Readme
Okay. Nest steo was logging out and loggin in again. Still a small black cursor pointer. Then I tried a reboot. As soon as the cursor shows up (before the login screen), it's a small black pointer/ Maybe it could be a symbolic link problem? What one(s) do I need? What should they be?

CantankRus

May 24th, 2015, 08:24 AM

oldefoxx

May 25th, 2015, 01:12 AM

Ok, so I gather it's working now. Goodluck :edit

Don't know if you seen it or not but in post #20 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2278591&p=13291206#post13291206) I attached a cursor theme and commands to install it.
Looks better than the ContrasteLarge theme.

The theme is the default DMZ-White theme with the 24 and 48 pixel layers removed to leave just the 32 pixel layer.
Just having the one pixel layer ensures a consistent size and gives you the same size at the login screen.
If you want an even larger cursor I have another theme using just the 48 pixel layer.

Yes, it's working now and thank you very much!

The steps you outlined in Post #20 took care of the matter nicely. Care to explain how you edited the contents of folder DMZ-White to create the contents of the new DMZ-White-Medium folder? I'm thinking of doing the same to create a new DMZ-Black-Medium and see how I like that. The small black arrow was more distinctive than a white one of the same size would have been, so I might migrate over to a black version. Worth trying.

Speaking of "Worth trying". I used apt-get in the command line of a terminal window to do update, upgrade, remove dconf-tools, autoremove, then an install dconf-tools. I then used dconf-editor to see the results. No change, dconf-editor fails to expand on the items in the left pane window when they are clicked on. Seems that problem won't go away. Any more magic potions to try here? Oh, I preceeded each apt-get with sudo, rather than actually becoming root with either "sudo su" or "sudo -s". Not sure if it makes any difference in a case like this.

CantankRus

May 25th, 2015, 07:48 AM

Yes, it's working now and thank you very much!

The steps you outlined in Post #20 took care of the matter nicely. Care to explain how you edited the contents of folder DMZ-White to create the contents of the new DMZ-White-Medium folder? I'm thinking of doing the same to create a new DMZ-Black-Medium and see how I like that. The small black arrow was more distinctive than a white one of the same size would have been, so I might migrate over to a black version. Worth trying.

Speaking of "Worth trying". I used apt-get in the command line of a terminal window to do update, upgrade, remove dconf-tools, autoremove, then an install dconf-tools. I then used dconf-editor to see the results. No change, dconf-editor fails to expand on the items in the left pane window when they are clicked on. Seems that problem won't go away. Any more magic potions to try here? Oh, I preceeded each apt-get with sudo, rather than actually becoming root with either "sudo su" or "sudo -s". Not sure if it makes any difference in a case like this.
The cursor theme was edited using gimp as explained HERE (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2048046&p=12715875#post12715875)

No need to create your own though. Attached to THIS POST (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2048046&p=12735911#post12735911) you will find 32px and 48px themes for DMz-White and DMz-Black.
I prefer and use the DMz-Black-Medium(32px). (lol sounds like a product endorsement :p )

Use the same commands to install as before, changing the downloaded file and extracted folder name and the CURSOR variable
IE (**No sudo su** [-X ;) )

cd ~/Downloads

tar -xvzf DMZ-Black-Medium.tar.gz

sudo mv DMZ-Black-Medium /usr/share/icons

CURSOR=DMZ-Black-Medium

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme 20

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "$CURSOR"

sudo update-alternatives --set x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme
Log out to complete change.

For the dconf-editor issue, I don't really know.
Unlike gconf-editor, the left pane items don't expand by double clicking.
You have to click right on the triangle.
262197

The dconf-editor package is a standalone package in 14.04.
I don't even have dconf-tools installed here which is now a transitional dummy package which just pulls in dconf-editor and dconf-cli.
Shouldn't matter though if you installed dconf-editor by installing dconf-tools but
purging and reinstalling dconf-tools will have no affect on the dconf-editor package.

Try purging and reinstalling dconf-editor.

oldefoxx

May 28th, 2015, 08:29 PM

Just getting back to this thread. Problems last night with this partition's continued use of ContrastLarge theme, in that I was using gedit, and kept losing sight of the mouse pointer and the current position marker as I was I was writing and editing a text file.

(LibreOffice is good, but word processors have a bit of a problem when it comes to creating a virtual table, where you are merely columnizing your fields on your own, Their proportional spacing attempts to just text it can leave a real mess. I wonder if there is a way to import or copy-and-paste a block of text so that it preserves its appearance by not applying proportional spacing for it after the paste?)

Anyway, I decided to go with DMZ-White-Medium and came back for the instructions you put in Post #20, and I find your last post where I now have more choices to pick from. Again, thank you very much. I got the remaining three now, and am about to make one fly. I think I will go with DMZ-Black-Medium and see how good that looks. Hope it makes gedit more contrasty.

I'm finding having multiple partitions to boot into a convenience. I get into a project on one and don't want to leave it, I can reboot into another partition and do something else. VirtualBox lets you do this for real for their clients, but so far as I know you can't effectively suspend the primary host so as to teboot into another host at what ever point it might have been suspended at. Would be nice to do sometimes. Keep current current memory contents stored someplace, and have a grub option to reload this at bootup time, which puts you back where you were.

Suspend doesn't really shut you down, it just minimizes power drain by shutting down some of the hardware. But it still demands poer to keep memory contents in place ("It's Alive!").

Hibernate may do it (never checked it out), but I don't see it as an option in 14.04. Oh wait. Just did a quick Google search, and found that you can still use Hibernate and they tell you how here (http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2014/04/enable-hibernate-ubuntu-14-04/) I see that Google provides more links on the subject, but that's for later.

Well, that's it for now. I've got things waiting that demand my time and attention, as I am sure you all have. Nice helpful chat. By the way, the link given for more on cursor themes ended up including some mention of others having cursor problems when they moved to 14.04, and that this is in spite of the fact that they have dconf-editor working for them. Apparently I am in a small pocket of people that it doesn't work for. Could it be a pocket of just me? Any readers of this thread have the same problem with dconf-editor as I do? I just switched from Quick Reply mode to Go Advance mode, and see no polling feature present, so if any have problems with dconf-editor, they may have to indicate this with their own post on this thread. Or start a new thread. Or suffer in silence. .

Ah well. Just a thought. Now on to changing my cursor theme per Post #20.

oldefoxx

May 28th, 2015, 09:39 PM

For the dconf-editor issue, I don't really know.
Unlike gconf-editor, the left pane items don't expand by double clicking.
You have to click right on the triangle.
262197

The dconf-editor package is a standalone package in 14.04.
I don't even have dconf-tools installed here which is now a transitional dummy package which just pulls in dconf-editor and dconf-cli.
Shouldn't matter though if you installed dconf-editor by installing dconf-tools but
purging and reinstalling dconf-tools will have no affect on the dconf-editor package.

Try purging and reinstalling dconf-editor.

I've tried single- and double-clicking on each little icon or button with both left and right mouse buttons, and nothing happens. When I installed dcong-tools, apt-get told me that it was installing dconf-editor at the same time, and this is how another site explained that you do it. But per your suggestion, it tried purging and reinstalling dconf-editor. But it does no better now than before.

Ah, you said TRIANGLE. You mean the leading right-pointing ARROW. Now that does work, to some extent. I can expand several categories now. BUT and this is the crutucal "but"0,nothing at all shows up under ---- oops, tried again, and suddenly things DO show up under "org". How about that?

It was awkward, but with repeated clicks (sometimes the first one did not take), I got down to org.gnome.desktop,interface, and there (of course the cursor was still set at at size 24 and theme DMZ-Black. So I reset to size 32 and theme DMZ-Black (which I only know about because of forum posts) and we will see whar happens on the next reboot, which will happen in mere moments.

But obviously the problem was "operator screwup" and this problem is SOLVED. (My shops ashore snd on ship had the slogan of [QUOTE]"Operator Error!" is our batle cry as we rush gallant[y into the fray of tackling problems headlong, searching for salient facts, and locking horns with our cohorts while rendering the world safe from harm..QUOTE]Or words to that effect. It's been a long time, and memory does not always serve well

Now I find myself on the receiving end. So enjoy it. It can happen to you. Hey, how do you reflag a thread as solved? Well, I claim to be a problem solver, so I onened another tab browser and got back to the start of this thread in it, under a what looks like a grayed-out button named "Thread Tools" was the choice of marking a thread as closed. That did it. I'm not so dumb after all.

Nope. dcong-editor is no longer adequate. It only effects some displays of the mouse, and then not for the better (black, but too small). ContrastLarge shows up elsewhere. Time for Post #20 solution, but with DMZ-Black-Medium as the theme in mind. Oh, on the matter of "Operator Error"? It was too long, so I customarily shortened it to '"Operator Error!" is our battle cry' or substituted '"Operator Error!" is our battle cry as we charge into the fray'. The important thing was to put the blame where it usually was, at least most of the time. So maybe we were wrong now and then. Nobody's perfect. And of course I came up with the slogan in the first place, and it was my shop, so who was going to argue with me? This was the military style of getting by.

CantankRus

May 28th, 2015, 10:17 PM

The standard DMZ-Black and DMZ-White cursor themes have the three pixel layers....24, 32 and 48.
Using these themes you can increase the size to 32px by running the terminal command....

echo "Xcursor.size:32" > ~/.Xresources && gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Interface cursor-scale-factor 1.35

or 48px...

echo "Xcursor.size:48" > ~/.Xresources && gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Interface cursor-scale-factor 2
Log out to complete the change.

Set back to default size....

echo "Xcursor.size:24" > ~/.Xresources && gsettings reset com.canonical.Unity.Interface cursor-scale-factor

oldefoxx

May 28th, 2015, 11:03 PM

Post #20 did its thing, but I noted where a SLIGHT improvement was possible. Had you started the steps given off with the CURSOR= variable assignment, you could have made a few more $CURSOR references in the lines that followed, so that the code would only require one place where the name of the cursor theme need be replaced. To save you from having to make that change in another post here, let me try to do it for you now.

Now I'm not exactly sure when quote marks are needed around a variable, so I may be "iffy" on the tar command reference. Let me see what happens with and without first. Yep. It works without the quotes.

CURSOR=DMZ-Black-Medium

cd ~/Downloads

tar -xvzf $CURSOR.tar.gz

sudo mv $CURSOR /usr/share/icons

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme 20

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "$CURSOR"

sudo update-alternatives --set x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/$CURSOR/cursor.theme

I also followed this with CantankRus's echo command to set the size at 32. Now the logout.

New cursor looks great! I got interested in seeing if I could learn more about what the cursor could scale to, and other than between 1.00 and 3.00, I only found mention that a scale factor of 2.65 will set you at 64.

I also used dconf-editor again (handy tool) and found that org.gnome.desktop.interface.cursor-size was changed to 32 for me, while the org.gnome.desktop.interface.cursor-them was changed to DMZ-Black-Large. Next partition I boot to, I may see if I can do the change via dconf-ediitor instead of just looking back with it.