No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

[barbolani]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

Sorry to ask this question, but I've not seen this checked in the thread. Given that even VESA text modes are giving you problems, have you checked if the hardware is not broken? I know, I know, the chance of your hardware breaking just at the time of the upgrade is very slim, but I'd try for example to boot from a CD and see how stable it is. I haven't seen the nv driver fail completely on any NVidia card, at least always being able to output something.

After all the operations that you've done my view is that you have a system that is in pretty much clean state. You should at least get something working at the basic level and you're not.

Another weird suggestion, do you have another video card on hand to test your system? That would give some indication if the problem is related to the hardware or the configuration.

[flarson]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

I am glad that someone else is watching this. The failed hardware is something that needs to be considered, even though it does seem unlikely. If you can try other hardware that would be good.

In reply to your vga situation I think you should disable the splash screen and the the quiet kernel messages. These require the framebuffer. I think it is best to simplify and avoid all of those at the moment. This means editing /boot/grub/menu.lst and then running update-grub.

What you want to do is change the defoption to

# defoptions=

. This will give you a lot more kernel messages at boot, which some people think is ugly, but it will allow your video adapter to not load a framebuffer.

You also should consider running

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

[petersk]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

OK, I'm going to try again with xorg instead of org.


Still no luck, and with the splash missing from GRUB, now I cannot see what's happening on the screen that well since the FONT is so huge and the display isn't set up to handle it. I'm now booted into an earlier kernel that had the splash screen so I can actually see what I'm typing.

Regards,
kurt

[barbolani]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

I have been reviewing your latest X logs and they show that some modules are still loading (glx and others) Could you try removing those by hand editing xorg.conf?

[petersk]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

How could I do that. My .conf is:
My xorg.conf is:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nv"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

[barbolani]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

Two possibilities here. First, I'm not up to date and the latest x.org release is finding its own ways of loading modules not based any longer in xorg.conf. If that's the case, maybe adding an empty "Modules" section to xorg.conf could help avoiding X loading those... second, for some misterious reason the xorg.conf you're dealing with is not the one that is actually being used at X startup time.

I'm trying to help, but I'm really running out of ideas. I wish someone more skilled in X than me could confirm/deny what I wrote above.

[flarson]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

The new X server does try to load modules but if they fail that is not a problem, so that is not a problem in itself. It might be if it were trying to load nvidia GLX whie using the nv driver.

I am thinking hardware more and more.

[petersk]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

Problem with the hardware theory is that the high res splash screen with scrolling text (no quiet) comes up during boot. I could try to find an old Kubuntu 6 or 7 CD or possibly a knoppix cd or even a Mepis cd to see if that comes up fine, but that will be a major pain in the proverbial you know what. I have tons of DVD with linux magazine but few cds. But... I'll look around tonight just to satisfy our curiousity there. I'm wondering if there's some incompatibility with Nvidia with the later kernel releases.

Also, I do have an old AGP card, but I'm not even sure there's an AGP slot.
K

[barbolani]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

It would be interesting to know. One of the reasons I choose nVidia over ATI is their track record of compatibility with older cards and the stability of their drivers.

[petersk]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

Well, I put in a whole new motherboard and the log in screen DOES actually appear now (the one with the usernames and passwords on it). Unfortunately, here's what happens:
1) I put in a password and it blinks and then comes back to the same screen
2) I do it again and it goes to totally a blank screen.
I CAN login to the terminal though, which is ok. Also, the "new" motherboard is an ASUS a7v8x-la with an integrated S3 card on it.

Any thoughts?
Regards,
Kurt

[barbolani]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

Did you enable desktop effects? And even if you didn't, could you check if they are enabled by some default?

[petersk]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

Is there a text-based way to tell if they're enabled or disabled? And how do I do that?
I basically online have CLI access.

[skunk]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

Is there a text-based way to tell if they're enabled or disabled? And how do I do that?
I basically online have CLI access.

Open the file ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc
Look in the section [Compositing]
.
.
Enabled=true
.
.

[petersk]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

I don't even have a section like that in my file.
As a matter of fact, in the version section, it still seems to have KDE version 3.5 references.

[barbolani]

Re: No GUI after upgrade from 8.04 KDE 4.1

petersk, does your new motherboard have integrated graphics? If so, I think that it's safe to assume that your hardware is working ok and what you're getting now is just an unfinished or incomplete upgrade. If that's the case you could now try from a text console issuing apt-get dist-upgrade and then apt-get update apt-get upgrade.
If that fails, I'd remove kde with apt, make sure there are no traces of it in your hard disk and then try to install it again.
And if that fails....well, I guess I'll have to read the whole thread again.