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**jlittle** · Feb 18, 2019, 04:11 PM

I don't have any help for your core problem, but I can explain one point:

Originally posted by frankus333 View Post

... Attempting ... tells me "Could not connect to any X display"...

if you want to run an X programme from the tty login, you need this command first:

Code:

export DISPLAY=:0

**frankus333** · Feb 18, 2019, 09:56 PM

Thanks jlittle

"export DISPLAY:0" returns an immediate command prompt so no indication of what it did, if anything.
Running "sudo export DISPLAY:0" tells me there is no such command as "export"
Running "startx" tells me something about missing authority, and wants to lock the authority file "/home/frank/.Xauthority".
After a few minutes it says "no protocol specified" quite a few times diagonally across the screen, then

xinit giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server:Resource temporarily unavailable.
waiting for X server to shut down (II) Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.

xinit: server error
xauth: timeout in locking authority file /home/frank/.Xauthority

"sudo startx" looks like it attempts to start the desktop; I get the "Plasma made by KDE" screen and a moveable pointer arrow but nothing else. However, Ctr;-Alt-Del brings up the Restart etc options which allow restart.

During restart, if I press ESC after the glowing Kubuntu logo comes up so I can see behind it, fsck seems to check the drive, sometimes up to three times, saying it is clean, before mounting it. All the commands have green OK in their brackets; no red FAILs. Interesting, in comparison to the result when I get partition editor to check the drive from another booted partition; the checks fail due to error that is unspecified (KDE Partition Editor in LM18.3KDE), or about unusual attributes (Gparted in LM18.3XFCE).

I checked the drive because I did some partition editing after the Ku18.04.1 fresh install, so I could fresh install the LM18.3KDE partition. This involved deleting the original LM17.3KDE partition, then expanding the LM18.3KDE partition into some of this free space, before creating the new LM18.3KDE partition out of the remaining free space, up to the Linux Swap partition, the outermost partition. These partitions are all further out than the KU partition, so I hoped that prevented any of this later partitioning from affecting it after the fresh install of Ku18.04.1, but maybe not?

Again, if this is going to prove too much of a hassle to fix, I will just delete the Ku partition and fresh install again. However, it would be nice to know what caused the problem, so I can avoid it happening again, and perhaps avoid all the setting up of a new install again.

**claydoh** · Feb 18, 2019, 11:13 PM

Skip trying to start things from a different tty for a moment

All I get after login and the "Plasma made by KDE" screen is my mouse pointer arrow, but nothing else; all black. Right clicking on the black desktop produces nothing. Ctrl-Alt-Del brings up the shutdown screen and I can reboot normally.

As you are seeing this, plasmashell looks to have crashed. hit alt-f2 to open krunner, and see if entering 'plasmashell' will start it up. Sometimes doing this fixes whatever is causing the crash. You can also open programs from Krunner, like Firefox, system settings, or whatever.

**frankus333** · Feb 19, 2019, 03:04 AM

Thanks claydoh

Just had a wild ride, which I am still trying to understand:
I asked krunner to start plasmashell, and also Ksysguard, and that showed plasmashell at 50% cpu consistently, but there was still no display on any terminal. Also Xorg wasn't showing any cpu % most of the time, and when it did, it was only 1-2 % cpu. I couldn't bring up Kate (perhaps to look at logs), although it comes up in krunner's search options. Dialog boxes came up on the display as well (e.g.; wlan and kwallet wanting passwords).

I suddenly remembered that my desktop is black (because I had set it to slideshow, and there are no pictures to access), and I wondered if it was just the bottom panel that was missing. However, right clicking on desktop didn't bring up any select options. However, as I typed this note, the panel suddenly appeared; spooky! However, it was not responsive; appeared frozen. Wait; just very slow to respond. Maybe there is/was something taking up too much resources; one cpu core was locked at 100%, while the other was at 20-30%, and they alternated. Now both are low, as is plasmashell, and the system is responding normally. However, the Konsole window I get when I bring it up is root, not me. Somehow, I still can't get Kate to come up.

I went through System Settings and changed desktop session to be a new one each reboot, rather than opening the last one. Also changed display rendering backend to Xrender, from OpenGL 2.0, to lower resources demand.

After closing System Settings, the system became stuck again, and CPUs again alternating 100%/lower, and I think with plasmashell(2) running at around 50% (couldn't easily see it because the launcher panel was stuck up). Edit: It seems each time the system locks up, plasmashell is running at 50%.

Discover came up with 10 packages to update. None related to plasma or kde, and I let them install.

I am wondering if there is anything else I should check or do before I try a reboot, to maximise my chances of the system coming up properly, and/or doing more trouble shooting?

**claydoh** · Feb 19, 2019, 03:23 AM

I don't know.
Which model do you have?
I know eeePCs are not overly beefy, but using xrender actually uses the cpu for compositing over the gpu, so it actually uses MORE resources I think. Might try disabling compositing altogether and see if that helps. I will also assume it is 32bit? if so, perhaps there is something specific to that, as this lacks testing these days as those with such hardware tend to not volunteer for it.

Does Xfce, etc run fine there?

**frankus333** · Feb 19, 2019, 04:24 AM

Thanks claydoh

Yes, computer info as in first post. All systems run a little sluggishly on this machine, understandably. I am still exploring the relative agility of each of the upgraded systems, and there is no obvious clear winner so far, but it is early days. My demands are mainly limeted to a little web surfing and office type applications, so not too worried about speed.

BTW; I am wondering if anyone reading this post can tell me where the wallpaper files one can download from the desktop actually get stored. They aren't available on the desktop after download, so I am assuming they go into some system folder, and can't understand why they are not easily accessible.

**frankus333** · Feb 19, 2019, 05:47 PM

Progress! And new learnings!!

I created another administrator user, and this user worked fine. I then began to customise it, and the problem returned when I again set up the desktop to have Slideshow, but there were no pictures, so it was black. This began the high (50%) and consistent plasmashell usage, and the slowed system. However, the Konsole was me, not root. Changing the desktop configuration back to Image, the set of images returned, and the system came back to normal responsiveness.

I don't understand how the Desktop Configuration option to have a slideshow when there are no pictures may be the thing confusing it? However, I rebooted back into the original user, and from the login screen, I took each step one at a time and waited a long time for each step to complete before trying the next one. In this painstaking way, I was able to claw may way back via tty2, using (short version after lots of trial and error):

export DISPLAY=:0
sudo startx

This gave the "Plasma made by KDE screen". After a long wait, this resulted in having the black desktop with the panel at the bottom.

Right clicked on black desktop, and after a long wait, Desktop Configuration panel came up. I changed setting back to Image, and the wallpaper returned, and so did the system responsiveness. Ksysguard confirmed plasmashell running at low cpu % intermittently. However, Konsole was still root, not me, and the user is actually root, as confirmed at the top of the Launcher panel. Also Kate, as well as Thunderbird, wouldn't start, either from the Launcher, or krunner. Rebooting to restart this original user resulted in a login screen that again did not respond to password being entered, even after quite a few minutes (not hours as I had done previously), so I got back in via tty2 again. Everything was as before reboot; normal responsiveness, Konsole and Launcher as Root, no Thunderbird or Kate available.

Closer inspection of Desktop Configuration panel showed it is no longer fully responsive to changes. I can change between Folder and Desktop layouts, and the prompt to Apply these before I can change anything else comes up, but no obvious change results after this Apply, and no other changes bring up the normal Apply button, so can't actually be changed. When I initially got the second user up normally, I was reminded that I had deleted the two folder icons (Home and Trash) on the desktop in this original user, thinking they were just shortcuts. Maybe they were more than shortcuts, and deleting them has drastically confused the system for this user?

Could I delete the original user, and save the files, and then reinstate it, to get the original user back intact, to save having to set a new user's settings up again? Or should I cut my losses and accept one of the new users, set it up fully, and delete the other two (original, and second new user I created along the way)?

Edit: I have just realised that the user is root probably because I used (sudo startx), not just (startx). I will try that and report back.

Edit 2: As reported in a previous post, I can't get (startx) to work. It shows error of "timeout in locking authority file /home/frank/.Xauthority", then lots of details about X.Org X Server 1.19.6 to help with fault reporting. So, I probably can't start the desktop as me, only as root.

**claydoh** · Feb 19, 2019, 06:30 PM

Ram? don't see that specified. I'll assume it has been upgraded from the stock 1gb

so we probably can rule out that as an issue.

User-installed wallpapers are in $HOME/.local/share/wallpapers, which is the standard Linux place for them

My only guess i that the very meager ten year old graphics don't like the compositing, on top of the old and relatively untested 32 bit setup. LM 18 KDE i actually Kubuntu 16.04, and has much more robust 32 bit support. Has disabling composting helped any? Plasma itself does not use a lot of ram jut after boot, ~ 400-600mb if you have done a minimal install.

I just realized I didn't ask about that. a full install includes Kontact, Akonadi, etc which can use a fair bit of resources. Also, on such a slow device, disabling desktop search will keep your drives from being indexed, which must be extremely noticeable on a device of this vintage. Thee are present in 1604 era Plasma, and Kubuntu, so I image they are also in LM KDE.

**frankus333** · Feb 19, 2019, 07:31 PM

Thanks claydoh

We may be coming in over the top of each other, or there is something weird happening with the time stamps on posts. (My last post was marked as yesterday, but I did it this morning.) Yes, as above, RAM 2GB.

I didn't have that wallpapers folder until I downloaded a couple of images from Get New Walpapers, so not sure where the original half dozen images are stored. No worries; I can use this folder now. Strangely enough, the new images appear in the list in the configuration panel, but only when set to static image, not slideshow!

I just tried to get slideshow working on the new user, with the new images, but the system froze again. I will give up on slideshow and stick with static image; it has caused too many hassles and wasted time. I will delete the original user, save settings, and see if it can be reinstated successfully.

If I wanted to disable some of those unsued apps to limit resource use, how would I go about it? I believe one should not uninstall apps that are standard parts of the system. Maybe I will just work through all the apps I don't use, and see if there is a disable or don't start option in each. Or is there a general setting (e.g.; System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Background Services) where it would be safe to disable them?

**claydoh** · Feb 19, 2019, 08:31 PM

I think the timestamps are local time at the server back in the US. It took me a bit to get used to that, visiting Australia these past few months.

Not knowing how or where you got your wallpapers, I will guess that they will be wherever you downloaded them to. If you needed to enter a password to install them, then they should be in /usr/share/wallpapers, which is the standard location for system wide wallpapers, and is where the stock ones included by a distro are kept.

Not sure about the slideshow, being on my Chromebook and away from my laptop atm, but I use the slideshow and you have to select the folder(s), I do not recall whether I noticed any existing image for selection or not. could be a minor bug, perhaps. Then again, I am using Neon, which is a bit ahead of Kubuntu in terms of Plasma. And is even lighter than Kubuntu Minimal, almost exactly the same as Xfce on my previous Chromebooks.

I betcha Lubuntu 18.10 with Lxqt will fly on your system, and have a fair bit of Plasma to its look as it is using Qt now instead of Gtk. No fancy gold chains or wobbly window effects, but very full featured nonetheless, and specifically designed for systems like yours (and older).I run(ran) Lubuntu on my eee PC 701. It still boots, but the OS is from 2012. Openi g a browser is what kills that setup. I was using it as a simple media center machine with Kodi and an IR remote dongle for a while.

you can turn off indexing in System Settings.
akonadi:
https://userbase.kde.org/Akonadi#Dis...nadi_subsystem
Akonadi is not as intensive, especially if you are not using it for anything, but every bit helps. Indexing can on some systems drag even fast machines to a crawl as it churns through a drive, especially a spinning one. I have not experienced this myself, but enough have to make disabling it a well known tweak.

sorry for the rambling. Paying attention to too many things at once.

**frankus333** · Feb 19, 2019, 09:55 PM

Thanks claydoh

As above, I just used the "Get More Wallpapers" button on the Desktop Configuration panel; no password required, and no indication of where they were being put, but this created the folder you mentioned in the /home/.local/share location as you said.

I am not too concerned about the sluggishness of the system on this old hardware, but it is nice to know there may be other lighter systems available similar to KDE if the need arises in future. When I first got into Linux 6 years ago I had some experience with lubuntu on my old 32 bit Dell desktop machine (which now runs LM18.3 KDE and LM18.3 Cinnamon, along with Win 7 Pro), which has a whole 30 MB of memory in its AGP card (a big step up from the 8MB on the motherboard). I found it fairly simple looking, and that was one of the reasons I explored LM options. The fact they have decided not to continue with a KDE version is the reason I have been looking more closely at Kubuntu again; I really like KDE.

I just looked at deleting the original user account, and the dire warning says something like that user is in use right now, and problems will be caused. Is this overly hyped, or could I do some damage to the other user accounts or the overall system by deleting the original user account, saving the files and then reinstating it?

**claydoh** · Feb 19, 2019, 10:58 PM

Deleting the account while you are using will likely make things crash or freeze or something as it tries to load thing that no longer exist, or write those places that no longer exist, since they have been deleted, as well as a lack of user permission on the system, as those also will have been deleted. Depending on what your goal is in deleting the account, it may be enough to wipe your current user and recreate it: From the command line without any desktop environment running at all, delete the contents of your /home/<username>. A stock set of thing will be recreated at the next login. This is a bit of a sledgehammer, so you can also simply delete any plasma related configs found in /.local and ./config or just an individual file if you know what you want or need to reset. You usually need to do this from outside of Plasma as often your setting are written back to disk from ram when you log out.

You of course can create a second user, and give that user account admin(sudo) privileges, then delete the first account if you want. I think there are posts on this here, somewhere.

**frankus333** · Feb 21, 2019, 04:53 AM

Thanks Claydoh

I was thinking I could save myself some time in setting up software again if I could rescue the original user account, but it is so damaged to be not worth the time and effort. I have deleted it, including all its files, by using the latest new user account, and continued setting up this new account.

I would have liked to understand how the slideshow feature is so corrupting; whether it is specific to my installation, or to eeePC, or a more general problem. The effect is quite striking here; as soon as I switch to slideshow, the system becomes very slow, and it takes waiting a long time between actions to be able to switch it back to Image. However, I don't want to spend any more time or effort on it, and can't investigate everything now, without the original user.

I don't use any of the apps requiring akonadi, and it is not running on the machine, so no worries there. However, soon after startup on both remaining users, one cpu core is maxed out with process "update-apt-xapi", which runs for about 5 minutes, followed by process "python 3" for another 2 minutes, slowing the machine considerably for the first 7 mins or so. I have switched off automatic updates in Discover settings, and confirmed all three lines in file "/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades" are set to "0" when checked in each user account, but it still happens after each boot. Ksysguard in tree mode tells me the xapi process has the command "/usr/bin/python3 /usr/sbin/update-apt-xapian-index --batch-mode --force --update".

Is there something else I can turn off or disable to prevent this resource hogging after bootup? I am happy to do all my system updates manually via the terminal.

**claydoh** · Feb 21, 2019, 05:34 AM

I don't know myself what else to do for older systems, but others in here may.
The slideshow I believe is using OpenGL, like all the effects and the like with Plasma 5, which may simply be too much for your graphics, or it doesn't support a modern version of it. Using xrender instead places the load onto the cpu, which will be even slower.

You may be able to dedicate more ram to the gpu, and I imagine there may also be overclocking possibilities.

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Desktop access stopped working Ku18.04.2 eeePC

[SOLVED] Desktop access stopped working Ku18.04.2 eeePC

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