Solving "device not managed" for Ethernet connections in Network Manager

At some point or another, Network Manager in Debian sid stopped managing my Ethernet connection. The source of the issue is /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf:

[main]
plugins=ifupdown,keyfile

[ifupdown]
managed=false

The [ifupdown] clause seems to be telling NM not to do it. The solution is to turn the frown upside down, but doing so in NetworkManager.conf means the setting will likely be clobbered the next time NM is updated. The solution to that is to create a file in in conf.d named 10-globally-managed-devices.conf. NM upgrades should leave custom files in conf.d alone.

Source

Fixing PackageKit authentication in Debian sid under Xfce

Today after updating stuff, my pkexec commands (e.g., synaptic-pkexec) stopped working. I don't know whether this was caused by something I inadvertently did that borked things or whether it's a bug in Debian sid. I figured out that the root of the problem (no pun intended) is that a policy authentication agent was no longer loading on login -- in spite of policykit-1-gnome being installed and the entry for PolicyKit Authentication agent being checked in Xfce's Session and Startup autostarts.

Reinstalling stuff didn't help.

Further sleuthing revealed that the PolicyKit Authentication agent entry in Xfce's Session and Startup was pointing to a (now) nonexistent file: /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1. Further examination revealed that the file /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop installed by policykit-1-gnome also was pointing to the same nonexistent file.

So here's what I did to kludge a fix:

• Created a new directory /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome
• Added a link from /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1 to /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.

After logging out and back in, things worked as expected.

I could have added a custom entry into my Xfce autostarts that pointed to the correct file, but that wouldn't have addressed the second issue of /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop pointing to phantoms.

To undo the changes once/if the problem is better sorted, all I need to do is delete /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome.

Broken Netbeans C++ code completion in Debian sid

When I use the workaround I wrote about for Netbeans crashing on startup in Debian sid, I notice that some C++ code completion doesn't work as expected. In several classes I've tried writing, code completion isn't picking up stuff declared in the header file.

When I use a copy of Oracle Java downloaded just for NB (i.e., netbeans_jdkhome="/home/me/opt/oracle-java/jre1.8" in /home/me/opt/netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf), things work as expected.

Whether this is a different or related bug I can't say, but I thought it worth mentioning in case anyone else is having the same problem.

Workaround for Netbeans crashing in Debian sid

A short while ago, my local install of Netbeans 8.0.2 started refusing to start with OpenJDK on my aptosid  box. I got around the problem by downloading Oracle Java and pointing Netbeans at that via my netbeans.conf:

...
# netbeans_jdkhome="/usr/lib/jvm/default-java"
netbeans_jdkhome="/home/mithat/opt/oracle-java/jre1.8"
...

Today I found Debian bug #798924 that suggests a workaround that allows using OpenJDK. In /etc/java-7-openjdk/accessibility.properties, comment out the line:

assistive_technologies=org.GNOME.Accessibility.AtkWrapper

So far so good.