Desktop disappears

[Guest]

Hi all.

This is a fresh install of Kubuntu 15.04 with the latest updates.

From time to time, when I change virtual desktops, the desktop disappears and I am left with a black screen and a mouse pointer, This also happened when I was trying openSUSE Leap.

I can recover by switching to another session (CNTL + ALT + F2), logging in and stopping the X server (startx stop) and restarting it.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on?

Thanks.. Tom.

[vinnywright]

15.04 ,,,,,,first with plasma5 and slightly buggy.

15.10,,,,,,improvements to plasma5 ,,,still slightly buggy.

both will be helped by the addition of the backports repo to your sources.list https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-ppa/+...untu/backports

and then running

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

16.04 will be/is better.

VINNY

[life0riley]

Kubuntu 15.04 has reached its end of life as of as of February 4th 2016.

Kubuntu 15.04 had Plasma version 5.3.1 (if I remember correctly)
openSUSE Leap has Plasma version 5.5.5
Kubuntu 16.04 has Plasma version 5.5.4 (Vinnie is right. Kubuntu 16.04 is much better.)

I tested virtual desktops on the above versions and I don't see this behavior you describe in Kubunt or openSUSE Leap.
Is it possible that you have some desktop effect's settings or compositor settings that are causing this issue?

We would also need more info about your system and hardware.
Is Kubuntu installed directly on your hard drive as the only OS or are you running as a virtual guest?
Are you using integrated graphics or do you have a dedicated graphics card installed?

[jlittle]

This is a fresh install of Kubuntu 15.04 with the latest updates.

Updates stopped for 15.04 some time ago, about the end of January if my date-fu is good.

From time to time, when I change virtual desktops, the desktop disappears and I am left with a black screen and a mouse pointer...

I can recover by switching to another session (CNTL + ALT + F2), logging in and stopping the X server (startx stop) and restarting it.

That may kill any applications you are running. Usually on my old system (11 years old) it's the window manager, kwin, that has got lost.

What I do, in fact about 3 out four times I boot Kubuntu 15.10, is switch to the other session, and restart kwin:

$ export DISPLAY=:0
$ kwin_x11 --replace &

and wait a while. With this I often lose the desktop background, but keep open applications.

15.04 ,,,,,,first with plasma5 and slightly buggy.

15.10,,,,,,improvements to plasma5 ,,,still slightly buggy.

It may depend on your hardware, particularly the graphics driver that hardware needs, but for me:

• 15.04 first with plasma5, missing lots and appallingly unstable
• 15.10 more complete, but not much more stable