[kde-linux] Starting up KDE hangs with a black desktop and movable mouse cursor.

[david]

Phillip Pi wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 18, 2007 at 05:28:57PM -1000, david wrote:
>> Phillip Pi wrote:
>>
>>> Two days ago on my home Debian system, I exited KDE v3.5.x (not sure
>>> exactly what version I have) and X back to console/text mode and
>>> restarted it (startx) but now I get a hang. I see a black desktop/GUI/X
>>> with a movable mouse cursor after seeing NVIDIA logo and an one second
>>> gray desktop. I have to use ctrl-alt-backspace to kill X to get out of
>>> it.
>>>
>>> I did some investigations and experiments as well. You can see the logs,
>>> results, etc. in
>>> http://www.kde-forum.org/artikel/17919/Starting-up-KDE-hangs-with-a-black-desktop-and-mov.html
>>> thread since they would be too much to post in here.
>>>
>>> Thank you in advance. :)
>> I had KDE 3.5.8 until updating yesterday. Every since then, attempts to 
>> start KDE from command line report either not finding kdeinit or errors 
>> trying to run kdeinit. I even removed everything KDE and reinstalled it, 
>> still having same problems.
> 
> Do you remember what was updated yesterday? I updated on Friday because
> I saw kdelibs (4:3.5.8.dfsg.1-3) so I decided to restart X. I don't know
> if kdelib update caused the problem since I haven't restart X for like
> two weeks! Is this what you did too?

Actually, my KDE problems began on Friday, I did an update and there 
were updates to gcc and such. Didn't see any updates to KDE at that time.

I did the update again later that night as an attempt to fix - I've had 
problems with partial updates, I think due to repositories being in an 
in-between state - some packages updated to the newer version, but other 
related packages not updated YET.

Anyway, I was up late determining that the problem wasn't due to any 
updates to Xorg and that fluxbox worked with no problems.

This afternoon I ripped out the installed KDE and went to reinstall, and 
found that 3.5.8 was no longer available as an option (only 3.5.7). So I 
can successfully run KDE 3.5.7 from fluxbox, but not from the command line.

I have other weirdnesses on the system that I'm trying to solve - for 
instance, getting driver modules to install on startup - so I don't 
really know what in all this tangle is the root of the problem.

I've been rather disappointed with Linux updates this year - three times 
now, I've had updates hose my system. At least one was an error in a 
package!

In fact, a friend of mine updated 3.5.8 a few weeks ago and got himself 
a non-functioning KDE because something wasn't indicated properly in a 
package somewhere and a piece of KDE that should have been updated 
wasn't. I don't remember what it was now, though.

>> BUT to make things more strange - the KDE 3.5.7 runs fine if I start it 
>> using "exec startkde" inside an XShell in Fluxbox!!!!
> 
> Ha, in Gnome and its terminal, I tried that just now but it hangs at
> "Setting up interprocess communication." at the first blinking icon
> (wheel) and hangs. Terminal shows "startkde: starting up" (same as 
> shown in logs).

Mine takes a lot longer at that icon than it did before I had to start 
it from inside fluxbox - but it eventually gets past it.

>> For now, I'm adding more drive space to my file server, then I'll backup 
>> my home directory and reinstall ... stupid computers!
> 
> :(

Anyway, time I did a real good backup of my /home directory, anyway. I 
have Etch running fine on my server, so I think I'll put it on the 
laptop, too. And maybe add a partition for a good multimedia/audio 
distro to accommodate my music composition hobby ...

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community