VLC media player - no icon and not in multimedia

U

URDRWHO

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As I have done in the past, I installed VLC media player on Kubuntu 12.04. I notice that there is no VLC icon nor is there a VLC noted in the Applications / Multimedia.

Why?

I uninstalled and re-installed but still nothing.

I am seriously getting tired of how easily linux breaks. You can't play around at all because once something breaks....it is down for the count.
 


I don't know about Kubuntu, but I have installed applications and they don't show up in the "applications menu".

I don't know what desktop environment you use, I use MATE and this is what I do:

Right click on applications menu, click edit menu, then I search for the newly installed application in the different menus. Sometimes it's not checked, therefore I can't see it in the applications menu, so I "check" it and waalaa, there it is!(There may be a systems tool that you can use to see what applications are available via applications menu for your DE - in MATE it's "main menu".)

Have tried running the applications via command line? I know some applications don't get placed in the applications menu and are only able run run by using the command line. (That might not be true in Kubuntu, though) Have you asked in their forums?

Don't give up! I know you've had quite a bit of problems with running Linux, perhaps Kubuntu isn't the distro you should use on your hardware? I have an old laptop (well from 2008) and run Debian and I haven't had any problems with it.
 
I've had the VLC located correctly on this laptop with other Kubuntu distros. Sigh!! I am getting very good at fresh installs.

I don't know about Kubuntu, but I have installed applications and they don't show up in the "applications menu".

I don't know what desktop environment you use, I use MATE and this is what I do:

Right click on applications menu, click edit menu, then I search for the newly installed application in the different menus. Sometimes it's not checked, therefore I can't see it in the applications menu, so I "check" it and waalaa, there it is!(There may be a systems tool that you can use to see what applications are available via applications menu for your DE - in MATE it's "main menu".)

Have tried running the applications via command line? I know some applications don't get placed in the applications menu and are only able run run by using the command line. (That might not be true in Kubuntu, though) Have you asked in their forums?

Don't give up! I know you've had quite a bit of problems with running Linux, perhaps Kubuntu isn't the distro you should use on your hardware? I have an old laptop (well from 2008) and run Debian and I haven't had any problems with it.
 
I've had the VLC located correctly on this laptop with other Kubuntu distros. Sigh!! I am getting very good at fresh installs.

ha ha ha (I don't mean to minimize your troubles, but it did make me giggle). Practice makes perfect! :p
 
You didn't minimize my troubles. :)

I've been messing with computers for a long time and never cracked windows as easily as I can to Linux.

What I am finding is although Linux doesn't have a registry like windows, things on linux do get left behind when installing and uninstalling. Packages do not cleanly remove and leave little bird droppings behind.

ha ha ha (I don't mean to minimize your troubles, but it did make me giggle). Practice makes perfect! :p
 
As I have done in the past, I installed VLC media player on Kubuntu 12.04. I notice that there is no VLC icon nor is there a VLC noted in the Applications / Multimedia.

Why?
Whether a menu is generated, depends entirely on how you installed the package.

I uninstalled and re-installed but still nothing.
What did you install/reinstall?

I've been messing with computers for a long time and never cracked windows as easily as I can to Linux.
You can break your own user space, but you cannot break root's or anyone elses unless you are root.

What I am finding is although Linux doesn't have a registry like windows, things on linux do get left behind when installing and uninstalling. Packages do not cleanly remove and leave little bird droppings behind.
Actually packages remove every last trace when purged. So I'm not sure where you get that idea from. What packages don't do is touch user space config (dot files) in you home directory - that's up to you to manage. If you applied faulty configuration and broke something, then purging and reinstalling packages one hundred times won't change a thing.
 
FIXED

Well I figured out how to use the KDE Menu Editor and I manually added VLC. I even found the icon to add and now everything looks as it should look. Still not sure why it happened but at least it is fixed.


ha ha ha (I don't mean to minimize your troubles, but it did make me giggle). Practice makes perfect! :p
 
Example is VLC that I installed. When installed it said that 92 mib of new space was going to be used, and X amount of new files. Using Muon I uninstalled VLC and saw that a lot less than 92 mib was removed. Then I purged. Then I put VLC in the search bar and see that there are still files that are showing installed that were not installed before VLC was installed.

I've got VLC in the correct place so I'm not going to uninstall to see what remains but I think they were files such as libvlccore5.

I've seen the same with other applications that I installed and then removed. I'll use DF to see disk space before the install, I remove / purge the application and the disk space doesn't go down to what it was before the initial installation.

Maybe it isn't how things should work but it is how things are working. I've seen the same thing on different Kubuntu versions 12.04 / 13.10 and 14.04.

I always use Muon to install and remove.

Yesterday while trying to install SAMBA config, the system was having a problem. I uninstalled SAMBA config. As I watched the files that were being removed I knew there was trouble because it was removing a lot of files. After it was uninstalled my KDE desktop was shot. All that I did was mark the SAMBA config application for removal, the same application that I installed 15 minutes before.

Whether a menu is generated, depends entirely on how you installed the package.


What did you install/reinstall?


You can break your own user space, but you cannot break root's or anyone elses unless you are root.


Actually packages remove every last trace when purged. So I'm not sure where you get that idea from. What packages don't do is touch user space config (dot files) in you home directory - that's up to you to manage. If you applied faulty configuration and broke something, then purging and reinstalling packages one hundred times won't change a thing.
 
Example is VLC that I installed. When installed it said that 92 mib of new space was going to be used, and X amount of new files. Using Muon I uninstalled VLC and saw that a lot less than 92 mib was removed. Then I purged. Then I put VLC in the search bar and see that there are still files that are showing installed that were not installed before VLC was installed.
When a package is installed it pulls in dependencies. These dependencies are often left behind when the package is removed. graphical front end package managers for Debian like systems are not much use in this case. I would suggest using the command line. apt-get should be able to remove the unused dependencies:
Code:
$ apt-get -s autoremove
Run that as a normal user and see what the output is. This will only simulate package removal not actually do anything.

I've got VLC in the correct place so I'm not going to uninstall to see what remains but I think they were files such as libvlccore5.
You can uninstall it and reinstall it as many times as you like and it won't affect your user's configuration - as I said above.


I always use Muon to install and remove.
I would strongly suggest getting used to the command line package manager - apt. muon, software-center, synaptic etc are just front ends for apt and dpkg (which are the package managers in Debian based systems).


Yesterday while trying to install SAMBA config, the system was having a problem. I uninstalled SAMBA config. As I watched the files that were being removed I knew there was trouble because it was removing a lot of files. After it was uninstalled my KDE desktop was shot. All that I did was mark the SAMBA config application for removal, the same application that I installed 15 minutes before.
If you remove a package which other packages depend on, you can remove half your system in the process. Again: use apt from the command line and look at the results before hitting "y".

Using apt you could have just reinstalled that particular package without breaking anything, e.g (from memory).

Code:
# apt-get reinstall --purge name_of_package_here

apt will refuse to leave the dependency tree in an inconsistent state, so if you try to remove a package which other packages depend on - and it's not an essential package - apt will remove the lot. Yes even if that's your entire desktop, X.org, browsers, etc...
 
When I said I always used Muon I should have said most of the time. I do --- at times -- use command lines to add, remove and purge.

I didn't know the correct language to use but yes the dependencies are the things that get left behind. Does apt-get autoremove also remove the dependencies?

Right now apt-get -s autoremove didn't find anything and to me that is a good thing. :)

Code:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree     
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.


When a package is installed it pulls in dependencies. These dependencies are often left behind when the package is removed. graphical front end package managers for Debian like systems are not much use in this case. I would suggest using the command line. apt-get should be able to remove the unused dependencies:
Code:
$ apt-get -s autoremove
Run that as a normal user and see what the output is. This will only simulate package removal not actually do anything.


You can uninstall it and reinstall it as many times as you like and it won't affect your user's configuration - as I said above.



I would strongly suggest getting used to the command line package manager - apt. muon, software-center, synaptic etc are just front ends for apt and dpkg (which are the package managers in Debian based systems).



If you remove a package which other packages depend on, you can remove half your system in the process. Again: use apt from the command line and look at the results before hitting "y".

Using apt you could have just reinstalled that particular package without breaking anything, e.g (from memory).

Code:
# apt-get reinstall --purge name_of_package_here

apt will refuse to leave the dependency tree in an inconsistent state, so if you try to remove a package which other packages depend on - and it's not an essential package - apt will remove the lot. Yes even if that's your entire desktop, X.org, browsers, etc...
 
It looks like there are no orphaned dependencies. So problem solved?

Also another thing to consider - when the package manager says 92MB of space will be used, this includes the package itself and the extracted package contents. Removing the package, might leave dependencies behind - as discussed earlier - but it also leaves configuration files and the package itself in the cache. You can clean out the cache easily:

Code:
# apt-get clean
Will clear the lot.

Code:
# apt-get autoclean
Will only clear out packages from the cache which are no longer downloadable from repository mirrors (so out of date packages).
 
Thanks.


It looks like there are no orphaned dependencies. So problem solved?

Also another thing to consider - when the package manager says 92MB of space will be used, this includes the package itself and the extracted package contents. Removing the package, might leave dependencies behind - as discussed earlier - but it also leaves configuration files and the package itself in the cache. You can clean out the cache easily:

Code:
# apt-get clean
Will clear the lot.

Code:
# apt-get autoclean
Will only clear out packages from the cache which are no longer downloadable from repository mirrors (so out of date packages).
 

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