Problems with LXDE and PCManFM

Troubleshooting
1

Hello,

I wanted to use DietPi on a RPi 4 just to learn some linux.
Installation was smooth and I chose to install the LXDE desktop.
With the configuration tool I selected to automatically boot into the desktop as root.
That’s where the problems began…

Problem 1)

  • VLC Player for example won’t start at all if you are logged in as root

→ run the autostart tool again → Automatic Login → user dietpi

Problem 2)

  • The xserver fails to load (user dietpi seems to not have the required rights)

→ run the autostart tool again → LightDm login mask
→ edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf to automatically login to user dietpi

Problem 3)

  • user dietpi has a completly unconfigured desktop (minor issue)
  • the file manager PCManFM does not work. It only opens shortly and is directly closed again (it is working as user root!)

Any ideas from some experienced users?

Thanks and best regards,
BattlePigMac

2

I have exactly the same Problem 3.
PCManFm starts an closed directly.
If i startet PCMan FM multible times, the Desktop-icons disappear.

When i start PCManFm from console it shows:

the directory /root/Templates doesnt exist, ignoring it
gtk_window_set_icon_list: icons too large
Speicherzugriffsfehler (english:Memory access error)

3

Many thanks for your report guys.

Not sure about VLC player, but there are applications that simply deny to be executed as root. You could edit the desktop icon to contain a “sudo -u dietpi” for example, and sometimes there are options as well that explicitely allow root execution.

Problem 2 AFAIK is solved with current version, however I can recheck. Indeed as the hint is given when choosing an autologin user, not all programs can be executed with every user, respectively sufficient permissions must be given first. Note that choosing an autologin user was not possible before DietPi v6.25, so that feature for sure needs polish.
But generally when using non-root for desktop, IMO LightDM is the intended way in general, which handles all permission things internally. What we can/should do is enabling desktop autologin for non-root users via LightDM directly. But I have to dig into that.

Indeed desktop icons are created for root user only on fresh install. The aim is to add those for other users automatically when choosing them for autologin. However not sure if this is really required, since our default desktop contains DietPi tools only, which require root permissions anyway. So those icons would then need to call sudo, and sudo permissions are something that need to be granted to users manually. Not sure how to handle best, but I am open for suggestions.

PCmanFM does not work as well when logging in with non-root via LightDM? Something we need to investigate then.