[kde-linux] Non-functinal kde displays with 11.4

[Duncan]

FrankK posted on Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:58:43 -0800 as excerpted:

> I think this post is more pertinent to kde-linux than to openSuse, but
> you can be the judge of that.

Makes sense, but then what's the 11.4 in the subject?  KDE is only up to
4.7.3, so 11.4 makes absolutely no sense if you're deliberately posting to
the kde list as you obviously are.

> I'm writing this because three recent installs of the stock kde 4.6 on
> openSuse 11.4 DVD for i532 32 bit,

OK, here you say kde 4.6.  Too bad you didn't put that in the subject, but
at least you got it in the post.

(IOW, I'd have reversed your priority, listing the kde version most
prominently, then mentioning my distro, for me, gentoo/~amd64/no-multilib,
rolling distro so no distro version, but the fact that I'm using the
gentoo/kde overlay might be be useful, and of course the fact that I'm on
kde 4.7.3 is importance on the gentoo lists since there's no
distro version with a default associated kde version to go by, but 
ESPECIALLY on the kde lists, where kde version is primary and distro info 
is secondary, only being important if it's a distro-specific issue.)

Getting it in the post at all is way more than many do, tho, so kudos 
there.  =:^)

> resulted in a non-functional display. All three installs were on old HW,
> but all three boxes are working fine with LXDE on 11.4.
> 
> Two of the non-functional displays painted a huge mouse cursor in the
> center of the screen with no apparent way to get to the taskbar. The
> third displayed a live, normal sized cursor on an immense black
> background.

OK, you haven't said how you started kde or lxde.  If you're using a *dm
aka graphical login, and it was displaying fine before you tried to log
into kde, which scrambled things, and before you logged into lxde, which
didn't, that's *QUITE* a bit different than if you login at a text-mode 
login and issue a startx command, with your xsession pointed at one or 
the other, so X is started directly for both of them.

You also mention nothing about your hardware, whether you're running UMS 
mode or KMS, what options you might have in your xorg.conf(.d), whether 
you're running freedomware or servantware drivers, etc, and there's no 
hint of your xorg log either.

What help are you expecting us to be able to give, without that sort of 
info?

> LXDE is an acceptable desktop for these machines, so I have a solution,
> but it seems to me that I should be able to capture the LXDE display
> information and use that to get a functional kde display. If so, how
> would I do that?

How would we know?  We don't have enough information about your system 
and how you're starting the two to even begin to make any informed 
guesses.

> Expecting kde display problems with the 11.4 installs, I installed the
> sax2-tools, but sax2 is not in the root path from level 3. I see in the
> xorg.d some mention of ctv. cvt didn't seem of much use to me.

Well, I know what init level 3 is and can guess that's what your allusion 
to level 3 is, but what is sax2-tools?  Is it a suse-specific package?  
If so, some description of it would be useful.  Even if not, you can't 
simply assume that all readers here will be familiar with it.

OK, a google says sax2 is as I guessed a suse-specific app, at least to 
the extent that it ships standard on suse, tho the author says it should 
be usable on other distros as well.  It's a qt-based and thus X-based GUI 
system that helps in setting up an xorg configuration.

Sounds like it might be useful, now that I know what it is.  But what 
about your xorg.conf(.d), if any, and what about your xorg log, normally 
/var/log/Xorg.* (where * is often 0.log and 0.log.old), which would 
reveal what settings are being used and whether they're from auto-detect 
or from configuration settings?

> My interest now for a kde display is for openSuse 12.1.

OK, but more of interest if you were on a suse list I guess.

> It still is nice to experiment with new SW. Being denied a functional
> display is a very frustrating outcome!

... and being denied the information necessary to even start properly 
looking for the problem is certainly quite frustrating for those of us 
who would help if we could, too. =:^\

> Since LXDE just works on 11.4 and kde just doesn't work on the same
> distro, I think I'm justified posting this to the kde-linux list.

That's a reasonable arguement.  If you'd just included less distro 
specific information and more hardware and generic configuration 
information, then the post to the non-distro list might have actually had 
a chance at getting a resolution...

> If I'm wrong about this post location let me know and I'll take it
> elsewhere. Frank K

The post location choice is fine.  But please do include the requested 
information about your hardware and driver, preferably xorg and kernel 
versions, any config found in /etc/X11/xorg.conf(.d/), whether you're 
using a *dm (graphical login) or logging in at the text console and then 
starting your DE of choice, and perhaps most importantly, the xorg log, 
probably /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

The log from a kde session as well as an lxde session, allowing 
comparison between them, could be quite helpful.

Looking forward to seeing replies with the requested info. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman