Fail-state = FAIL

Using Ubuntu 14.04 which is the current LTS release I was able to install Gnome-Do [1] and basically rock it. Gnome-Do is a port/clone of the Quicksilver app for Macs. It’s a launcher but so much more. It follows a subject/predicate/[object] syntax activated by a key combination. It’s also scriptable. Suddenly the mouse/touchpad becomes an optional device on the Mac. Which is a good thing, by the way.

Executive summary: If you’re on MacOSX[foo] and you’re not using Quicksilver [2], then you’re wrong and you probably won’t have any viable progeny.

With that out of the way, you can see how one would find a port/clone of this app on a *nix box to be a good thing too. I mean, there is always a terminal window open and any .bashrc file worth its salt will have shortcuts galore which mirrors the launching half of what Quicksilver provides. But the scripting? Again, you can predict much of that and stuff that into your .bashrc (you are using bash, right?) but when it comes to on-the-fly scriptability, Gnome-Do was tops.

Until I upgraded anyway. The move from 14.04 to 14.10 may not have been wholly advisable–after all there isn’t much new in 14.10 and certainly nothing I needed. But the upshot being, I did the in-place upgrade and that absolutely killed Gnome-Do. In fact, it killed Gnome. It killed everything Gnome related. No Unity, no Gnome-shell, no Cinnamon, no MATE. Nothing.

Luckily I’d installed Fluxbox because it’s never lost its old-school charm. Sometimes you want a windowing system that is lightweight and not loaded with geegaws. At any rate, Fluxbox –> Terminal –> apt-get purge and everything was cleaned up in regards to that.

Of course, I ended up re-partioning and pulling my /home/nhansen across on an untouched partition anyway because the upgrade also blew up all of the gnome-related sound processing during video playback…and that problem wasn’t so easily solved.

So how did you spend your vacation days in November, Nick? Troubleshooting an in-place upgrade and ultimately Un/re-installing a base operating system on my primary workstation. Hooray for fun times!

At any rate, in the process I have a more robust partitioning scheme, a fresh 14.10 install, and a newfound respect for the Mint distro’s [3] folks fear of in-place upgrade installs.

Oh, and so the funny thing? I got everything fixed and then tonight apt-get installed gnome-do again. Before reinstalling Fluxbox. Why? I wish I had a good answer to that. Anyway, thank the higher power that Ctrl-Alt-F[2 -6] brings up a terminal windows from which I could apt-get purge that little fucker.

Never again, Gnome-Do! Do you hear me? Never fucking again! Bastard.

[1] http://do.cooperteam.net/
[2] http://qsapp.com/
[3] http://linuxmint.com/

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