Trisquel 8: Not able to format USD or SD cards. synaptic package manager fails. Unable to set time and date
Hi all,
I am simple user. With Trisquel 7 I had no problem with formatting Drives, SD cards, USB drives. Not trouble using Synaptic, or setting time and date. In particular setting time and date won't let me unlock. The lock/unlock icon isn't active. All of the above I accessed graphically. I'm not good at the command line. I can follow directions though. Any help along these lines will be appreciated.
kind regards,
william
When you write "I am a simple user", do you mean you do not have administration privileges (for instance you cannot update he packages after entering your password)?
If you do have administration privileges, then you can install the "gnome-disk-utility" package (for instance). If the "Synaptic Package Manager", in the "Control Center", does not work (what is worrying if you do have administrative privileges), execute this command in a terminal ('sudo' will ask for your password):
$ sudo apt install gnome-disk-utility
GNOME Disks allows you to format the existing partitions on your disks (including SD cards and USB drives): click, in this order, on the disk, on the partition and, in the menu that is a button with three gears, select "Format partition...".
As for setting the date and time, I have no problem unlocking either GNOME Shell's utility or MATE's (but from GNOME Shell).
I didn't know that Synaptic was even capable for formatting disks. I
thought it was only intended for package management. Have you tried
using a disk partitioner like GParted?
Synaptic only aims to manage packages. It cannot format partitions. As far as I understand, those are separate issues in wilnav's post. Well, not that separate if the problem is "no administration privileges".
I misread your title, sorry.
Can you launch these programs from a terminal as root using gksudo? For
example,
$ gksudo synaptic
should launch a window prompting your for your password, and when
then when Synaptic launches Synaptic should work.
If that doesn't work, run
$ groups
in a terminal, and see if "sudo" is listed as on of your user's groups.