# Missing software? **URL:** \ **Category:** SLES Configure-Administer\ **Created:** [March 30, 2012, 10:33pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/missing-software/22462 "2012-03-30T22:33:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dwoeltje](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/71c47a/32.png) [@dwoeltje](https://forums.suse.com/u/dwoeltje)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 10:33pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/missing-software/22462/1 "2012-03-30T22:33:42Z")
I just installed an SLES 11 system for the first time. I’ve been using other distros for testing for various projects (Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora Core 16, CentOS, RHEL 6.2, etc.). I need to have certain items listed on certain menus within SLES’s GNOME desktop, but unlike openSUSE (which includes a menu editor called alacarte (in GNOME it is simply listed as “Main Menu”)), I’m unable to find a copy of alacarte included with SLES 11 or anywhere else on the Internet for that matter (or any other gui-based menu editor). I’ve attempted to install the openSUSE alacarte menu editor into SLES 11 but every attempt has failed. In fact, there seems to be a fair amount of software that comes with openSUSE that doesn’t appear to be available in SLES 11. Since I have to use SLES 11 for this project, does anyone know of a way to get some of this missing software installed and working on SLES 11? Right now, my primary concern is having a way to easily edit the menus within GNOME. I realize that most Linux users prefer to use the command line to do most of their work and while I started out my computer career on the command line (with MS-DOS 1.0), I’ve been using Windows for so long that I prefer doing as much as possible from a GUI rather than from the command line. ---
**Author:** ![malcolmlewis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/malcolmlewis/32/11375_2.png) [@malcolmlewis](https://forums.suse.com/u/malcolmlewis)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 10:47pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/missing-software/22462/2 "2012-03-30T22:47:03Z")
> [@dwoeltje](#): > > I just installed an SLES 11 system for the first time. I’ve been using > other distros for testing for various projects (Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora > Core 16, CentOS, RHEL 6.2, etc.). I need to have certain items listed on > certain menus within SLES’s GNOME desktop, but unlike openSUSE (which > includes a menu editor called alacarte (in GNOME it is simply listed as > “Main Menu”)), I’m unable to find a copy of alacarte included with SLES > 11 or anywhere else on the Internet for that matter (or any other > gui-based menu editor). I’ve attempted to install the openSUSE alacarte > menu editor into SLES 11 but every attempt has failed. In fact, there > seems to be a fair amount of software that comes with openSUSE that > doesn’t appear to be available in SLES 11. > > Since I have to use SLES 11 for this project, does anyone know of a way > to get some of this missing software installed and working on SLES 11? > Right now, my primary concern is having a way to easily edit the menus > within GNOME. I realize that most Linux users prefer to use the command > line to do most of their work and while I started out my computer career > on the command line (with MS-DOS 1.0), I’ve been using Windows for so > long that I prefer doing as much as possible from a GUI rather than from > the command line. Hi alacarte is there? From the menu system it’s under Tools Main Menu - System view and Main Menu - User view. You can swap the menu over in the panel, by right click and select ‘Add to Panel’ and select Traditional Main Menu or Menu Bar for a custom version. To revert it’s called Main Menu. You might want to look at also adding the SLE SDK, which includes additional devel packages. – Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890) SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86\_64) Kernel 3.0.13-0.27-default up 1 day 1:03, 3 users, load average: 0.02, 0.05, 0.05 CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU ---
**Author:** ![malcolmlewis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/malcolmlewis/32/11375_2.png) [@malcolmlewis](https://forums.suse.com/u/malcolmlewis)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/missing-software/22462/3 "2012-03-30T22:50:56Z")
[QUOTE=malcolmlewis][QUOTE=dwoeltje] I just installed an SLES 11 system for the first time. I’ve been using other distros for testing for various projects (Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora Core 16, CentOS, RHEL 6.2, etc.). I need to have certain items listed on certain menus within SLES’s GNOME desktop, but unlike openSUSE (which includes a menu editor called alacarte (in GNOME it is simply listed as “Main Menu”)), I’m unable to find a copy of alacarte included with SLES 11 or anywhere else on the Internet for that matter (or any other gui-based menu editor). I’ve attempted to install the openSUSE alacarte menu editor into SLES 11 but every attempt has failed. In fact, there seems to be a fair amount of software that comes with openSUSE that doesn’t appear to be available in SLES 11. Since I have to use SLES 11 for this project, does anyone know of a way to get some of this missing software installed and working on SLES 11? Right now, my primary concern is having a way to easily edit the menus within GNOME. I realize that most Linux users prefer to use the command line to do most of their work and while I started out my computer career on the command line (with MS-DOS 1.0), I’ve been using Windows for so long that I prefer doing as much as possible from a GUI rather than from the command line. [/QUOTE] Hi alacarte is there? From the menu system it’s under Tools Main Menu - System view and Main Menu - User view. You can swap the menu over in the panel, by right click and select ‘Add to Panel’ and select Traditional Main Menu or Menu Bar for a custom version. To revert it’s called Main Menu. You might want to look at also adding the SLE SDK, which includes additional devel packages. [/QUOTE] Ahh SLES…my bad. I was on SLED… Do you have any SLED 11 systems? – Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890) SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86\_64) Kernel 3.0.13-0.27-default up 1 day 1:12, 3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.05 CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU ---
**Author:** ![dwoeltje](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/71c47a/32.png) [@dwoeltje](https://forums.suse.com/u/dwoeltje)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 11:12pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/missing-software/22462/4 "2012-03-30T23:12:48Z")
No. I don’t have any SLED systems. Just SLES 11. And Main Menu doesn’t exist on SLES. ---
**Author:** ![malcolmlewis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/malcolmlewis/32/11375_2.png) [@malcolmlewis](https://forums.suse.com/u/malcolmlewis)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/missing-software/22462/5 "2012-03-31T00:19:38Z")
> [@dwoeltje](#): > > No. I don’t have any SLED systems. Just SLES 11. Hi The version with SLED 11 SP1 is 0.12.4-1.2.9 from the SLED11-SP1-Pool Now you could temporarily add this repo (See your NCC page for the mirror credentials and repo address), tthen once installed, disable. Else openSUSE 11.2 ran the same version 0.12.4-2.3. You need alacarte and arlacarte-lang. Search here for the download links for your arch; [http://rpm.pbone.net/](http://rpm.pbone.net/) – Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890) SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86\_64) Kernel 3.0.13-0.27-default up 1 day 2:37, 3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05 CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU ---
**Author:** ![dwoeltje](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/71c47a/32.png) [@dwoeltje](https://forums.suse.com/u/dwoeltje)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 9:15pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/missing-software/22462/6 "2012-04-03T21:15:21Z")
That doesn’t work either. Any attempt to install alacarte produces an error message indicating that alacarte-lang must first be installed because alacarte requires it. Any attempt to install alacarte-lang produces a similar error that alacarte-lang cannot be installed because it has alacarte as a dependency. Both packages list the other as a dependency, so you get stuck in a catch-22 situation. You can’t install A without B already installed and you can’t install B without A already installed. They seem to have done something deliberately to keep people from installing applications intended for SLED onto SLES (and without providing an alternative). I ran into another problem. I can’t get Adobe flash working as a plugin on this SLES system. I managed to get Adobe Reader working because its install process was different from that of Flash. But I cannot get Flash working. I’ve tried copying the libflashplayer.so file into every conceivable directory that I could come up with and I still can’t get Firefox to find it and recognize it as a plugin; I don’t know where Firefox is looking for those plugins. I’ve tried the following directories: /usr/lib64/plugins (my system is a 64-bit system) /usr/lib64/browser-plugins /usr/lib64/browser\_plugins /usr/bin/plugins /usr/bin/browser-plugins /usr/bin/browser\_plugins /home//plugins /home//browser-plugins /home//browser\_plugins /home//.mozilla/plugins /home//.mozilla/browser-plugins /home//.mozilla/browser\_plugins When I installed Firefox 11 on this system, I used a manual method, so I also put “plugin” directories here to see if that would work: /opt/firefox11/plugins /opt/firefox11/browser-plugins /opt/firefox11/browser\_plugins And even though this is a 64-bit system, I even put “plugin” directories here, to see if that would work: /usr/lib/plugins /usr/lib/browser-plugins /usr/lib/browser\_plugins Every one of those directories listed above has a libflashplayer.so file in it and that file is set to chmod 777 (to make sure it can be read, written, and executed). Now, when I installed Adobe Reader and I determined that it was working (and working as a plugin), I checked all those directories and the only one where I found what appeared to be Adobe Reader’s library file was /opt/firefox11/plugins. In that directory, in addition to the libflashplayer.so file that I had put there manually, I also found an nppdf.so file. ---
**Author:** ![malcolmlewis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/malcolmlewis/32/11375_2.png) [@malcolmlewis](https://forums.suse.com/u/malcolmlewis)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/missing-software/22462/7 "2012-04-03T21:45:09Z")
> [@dwoeltje](#): > > That doesn’t work either. Any attempt to install alacarte produces an > error message indicating that alacarte-lang must first be installed > because alacarte requires it. Any attempt to install alacarte-lang > produces a similar error that alacarte-lang cannot be installed because > it has alacarte as a dependency. Both packages list the other as a > dependency, so you get stuck in a catch-22 situation. You can’t install > A without B already installed and you can’t install B without A already > installed. They seem to have done something deliberately to keep people > from installing applications intended for SLED onto SLES (and without > providing an alternative). I ran into another problem. I can’t get Adobe > flash working as a plugin on this SLES system. I managed to get Adobe > Reader working because its install process was different from that of > Flash. But I cannot get Flash working. I’ve tried copying the > libflashplayer.so file into every conceivable directory that I could > come up with and I still can’t get Firefox to find it and recognize it > as a plugin; I don’t know where Firefox is looking for those plugins. > > I’ve tried the following directories: > > /usr/lib64/plugins (my system is a 64-bit system) > /usr/lib64/browser-plugins > /usr/lib64/browser\_plugins > /usr/bin/plugins > /usr/bin/browser-plugins > /usr/bin/browser\_plugins > /home//plugins > /home//browser-plugins > /home//browser\_plugins > /home//.mozilla/plugins > /home//.mozilla/browser-plugins > /home//.mozilla/browser\_plugins > > When I installed Firefox 11 on this system, I used a manual method, so > I also put “plugin” directories here to see if that would work: > > /opt/firefox11/plugins > /opt/firefox11/browser-plugins > /opt/firefox11/browser\_plugins > > And even though this is a 64-bit system, I even put “plugin” > directories here, to see if that would work: > > /usr/lib/plugins > /usr/lib/browser-plugins > /usr/lib/browser\_plugins > > Every one of those directories listed above has a libflashplayer.so > file in it and that file is set to chmod 777 (to make sure it can be > read, written, and executed). Now, when I installed Adobe Reader and I > determined that it was working (and working as a plugin), I checked all > those directories and the only one where I found what appeared to be > Adobe Reader’s library file was /opt/firefox11/plugins. In that > directory, in addition to the libflashplayer.so file that I had put > there manually, I also found an nppdf.so file. Hi Just cd to the directory the files are at and just use zypper to install the rpms at the same time (no conspiracy 😉 ) ```auto zypper in alacarte-blah.rpm alacarte-lang-blah.rpm ``` Any rpm for SLED 11 will work with SLES (just not supported). Have a look here for what I have on this system (just create softlinks as required) [http://paste.opensuse.org/50245779](http://paste.opensuse.org/50245779) – Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890) SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86\_64) Kernel 3.0.13-0.27-default up 1 day 17:20, 2 users, load average: 0.31, 0.10, 0.07 CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU