Rolling release, minor nags: firefox preload, SDDM.

Community Ideas
1

I do love Netrunner Rolling, but I have two minor nags I’d like to share:

Firefox preload script at /usr/share/netrunner-default-settings/preload.sh messes up firefox last session restore function. It’s very easy to disable it in KDE startup and shutdown settings. Script needs to be fixed somehow.

SDDM is nice Display Manager, but I think it should be optional. I’ve changed it to KDM, but I had to go to Settings -> Advanced -> Other -> Login Screen and to set it to existing theme, as of default it tries to load non existant manjaro theme and fails.

2

Glad your enjoying the rolling release, both the Netrunner and the Manjaro teams are doing an excellent job.

I feel that you have brought up two great and legitimate concerns, I agree with you about KDM instead of SDDM, I do the same thing. I use google-chrome from the AUR so I haven’t noticed the preload issue your having, hopefully they can get that fixed soon.

3

[quote]Firefox preload script at /usr/share/netrunner-default-settings/preload.sh messes up firefox last session restore function.
[/quote]
How does it mess up this function ?
What is the exact problem with the last session restore function ?

4

How does it mess up this function ?
What is the exact problem with the last session restore function ?
[/quote]

When I set option Settings → General → “When Firefox Starts” “Show My Windows and Tabs From Last Time”. I close firefox, start it again, or start a new after reboot - I get only one tab with google in it, not a last session. It looks like firefox process is already and constantly running in the background (I can get it with ps ax | grep firefox), and it gets all the restored tabs. If I kill this invisible stray process, my last session is saved and restored properly.

Just to be clear, this is what I’ve got in my preload.sh script:

#!/bin/bash

# Make sure there is no lock file no matter what on start
rm -f ~/.mozilla/firefox/*/lock

TotalMem=$(cat /proc/meminfo | grep -i memtotal | cut -d ':' -f 2 | awk '{print $1}')
# Under 2 GB of RAM means skip preloading
if [ "$TotalMem" -le "2000000" ]; then
echo "Preloading skipped as under 2 GB of RAM detected"
  exit 0
else
sleep 2;
  #ksystraycmd --window 'Mozilla Firefox' --hidden firefox &
  kstart --skiptaskbar --window "(.*)Firefox(.*)" ksystraycmd --window "(.*)Firefox(.*)" --hidden firefox &
fi

If I skip it on kde startup, my windows and tabs are saved and restored properly.
Thanks.

5

Ah ok thats an problem coming from the way we created the preload stuff. It executes a firefox process that hides itself into the tray. So when restore is enabled the hidden window in the tray restores the tabs and not the new instance called upon clicking the firefox icon. I am not sure if this can be worked around.

6

I see, it’s a really minor thing, I’ve disabled this script, I have’nt got much to gain with firefox preload, just wanted to draw your attention.
[hr]

Just a possibility, there’s Firefox Add-On called “Preloader (for Firefox)” by Diego Casorran, which claims to add preload functionality to firefox. I’ve installed it and changed preload script line to launch “firefox -preloader &”, but I cannot be sure it’s really working, my firefox starts under 1 second even without it so it’s hard to notice. At least it’s not interfering with restoring previous tabs.