mintupdate problems, was: Linux Mint 17 synoptic update manager

[joe at actionline.com]

Thank you, Tom, for your very thorough response.
Now, if my aging mind can manage to sort through it all,
I believe you probably have provided valuable assistance.

Joe

> [endnotes follow .sig]
>
> Josef Lowder[1]
>> Every time I open the Synaptic update manager,
>
> Actually, no ...
>
>> Here are three successive screen shots of this problem:
>
>> From Nov 18: http://www.upquick.com/temp/updatemanager1.jpg
>
> That screenshot shows 3 problems, only one of which you discuss in your
> post. The first problem, which may seem "merely semantic"[2], is that
> your screenshot is of an application called "Update Manager," not
> Synaptic. This can be easily shown by launching the two apps via their
> commandlines. Goto your terminal of choice (I have no idea what that is
> in KDE, which appears to be problem 2, but we'll deal with that next),
> and therein utter the following commandlines[3]
>
> kdesudo mintupdate &
>
> kdesudo synaptic &
>
> The first commandline above should (after you type your password) launch
> the application that troubles you, which I claim is Update Manager, aka
> UM, aka mintupdate. The second will launch the application commonly known
> as Synaptic, about which you have no complaint (yet :-)
>
> Now that you're clear on that (hopefully), you can solve your first
> problem, which is being unclear about the etiology[4] of your problem.
> The second problem you must solve is, seek help from the appropriate
> community. Given the presence of the KDE icon in the above screenshot,
> and the appearance of your window frames in all 3, I'm guessing you're
> running one of the KDE Mints[5]. If that's false, ignore the following
> paragraph:
>
> Mint is not anymore a distro, it's an ecosystem including several varying
> distros as well as numerous associated applications and environments.
> E.g., I run mostly Cinnamon LMDE, which is somewhat different from MATE
> LMDE, and quite different from the Ubuntu-based Mints. The vast majority
> of all of those, however, are GNOME-based, and as such the vast majority
> of Mint users will have very little of use to say about a problem
> involving KDE (or, for that matter, LXDE or Xfce--but at least those
> desktops are based on GTK, which underlies GNOME).
>
> Which leaves the third problem, which is, what's wrong with your
> mintupdate? I dunno. Someone else on this forum might; if so, ignore the
> following recommendation. I recommend you goto the Mint forum='Software &
> Applications'[6] (on which I have several times gotten useful information
> in the past) and describe your problem with a subject line like
>
> mintupdate problems on KDE [your Mint version here]
>
> Use the term 'mintupdate' because it's generally understood and most
> exact. (For extra credit, goto Help>About and note which mintupdate
> version you're running.) Be sure to be clear about which version of Mint
> you're running, and about the fact (unless I'm completely wrong) that
> you're running KDE. This is mostly likely to get you performant and
> skillful help ... though, again, there may not be many folks running KDE
> on the forum--I dunno. If you *do* get responses:
>
> The verdict may very well be that mintupdate does not run well on KDE, in
> which case you should seek recommendations about alternate package
> managers to run. (Personally, I'd recommend one of the fine CLI dpkg/APT
> tools like `aptitude`, which also has a TUI[7], which kinda "splits the
> difference" between a GUI and a CLI.) Alternatively, there may be a
> problem with your host's current repositories, downloaded packages, or
> other parts of its current dpkg/APT configuration that is choking your
> host's mintupdate in a manner that has nothing to do with KDE.
>
> HTH, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox.com>
>
> [1]:
> http://lists.phxlinux.org/lurker/message/20161215.191124.4beac47c.en.html
> [2]: Readers are encouraged to deliver verbal or physical dopeslaps to
> anyone uttering the phrase "merely semantic." "Semantics" are quite
> literally the meanings of words, and failures to agree on meanings of
> words usually lead quickly to failures to communicate. Which is usually
> bad.
> [3]: Note that as someone with extremely limited KDE usage, ICBW here,
> but I believe its equivalent of `gksudo` is `kdesudo`.
> [4]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aetiology#English
> [5]: latest being (IIUC) https://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=224
> (since I can't find reference to a KDE for Serena yet)
> [6]: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewforum.php?f=47
> [7]: For TUI screenshots, see
> https://askubuntu.com/questions/821164/how-do-i-access-the-aptitude-why-functionality-through-aptitude-s-interactive
> and ignore the answer that describes it as a GUI--it's not.
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