On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 05:18:23PM +0000, Beartooth wrote: > On Sat, 29 Apr 2017 17:13:30 +0100, Pete Biggs wrote: > > > On Sat, 2017-04-29 at 15:43 +0000, Beartooth wrote: > >> My wife bought a new Thinkpad, on which we had the shop install > >> CentOS 7 (I *think* it's 7.3.) Alas!, I didn't think to specify NOT > >> Gnome, > >> in thunder. So of course I got it. > >> > >> I've tried several times to force myself to accommodate Gnome3, > >> always with no joy. How do I get Mate or Xfce instead? > > > > I hope this doesn't sound rude, it's not meant to, but have you googled > > for it? The first hit on 'install xfce centos7' or 'install mate > > centos7' gives the answers in much more detail than I can go into here. > > But basically, install epel and then > > > > yum groupinstall "Xfce" > > > > or > > > > yum groupinstall "MATE Desktop" > > No, actually, I hadn't realized Google could do things that fancy; > thanks for the pointer! > > >> Related problem: when I become root and tell it "yum update," it > >> figures out a list of umpteen hundred rpms to update, but then runs > >> through attempts at mirrors and keeps failing till it runs out. It > >> failed to connect to my wireless router (or even to find it, afaict). > >> So I plugged it into the router with an ethernet cable. No joy. > >> > >> > > Do you have any net connection at all? Can you see websites? If you > > can't see the outside world, updates aren't going to happen. > > No, and I can neither ssh nor scp over my LAN. We had a lightning > strike a month or so back that must've been right next to the house: > blindingly bright, and with huge thunder simultaneously. It fried both the > cable modem and the router; and I haven't yet managed to install DD-WRT > (or whatever may have succeeded it) onto the router. at one point in 7.x there was a "feature" in the installer that if you did not enable networking during the install, you ended up with an installed system where networking was also not enabled. that means you need to find the appropriate incantation to turn on networking. Most likely, right-click on the NetworkManager icon in the top panel, click "edit connections", click Ethernet in the window, then click the "Add" button, and add to your heart's content. you may need, subsequently, to right-click on the NM icon again then "Enable Networking". when "Add"ing, if you want the network you added to start at boot, on the "General" tab of the add dialog, click "All users may connect to this network". Otherwise it comes up when you log in, and down when you log out. not what most of us want. -- ---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us ----------------------------- God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." --------------------------- Corinthians 5:21 ---------------------------------