Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

[trevor4706]

I was unable to install Kubuntu 9.04 on my old Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop because of problems with the Intel driver, and was anxious to see if the problems had been solved in the Karmic release. So I installed the Beta on a hard drive I swap into the laptop for test purposes. Installation went smoothly. On first boot I logged in, and went to the splash screen where the icons for hard drive, desktop, network etc appear in sequence, with the KDE logo being the last. Then the screen fades to black with only the mouse cursor. No wallpaper, no panels. Using Alt-F2 I can get the run dialog in a very minimized form that I have to drag a corner to enlarge, and by using the Run command it seems I can access just about any program. The programs open in a small box in the upper left hand corner, which I can enlarge by dragging a corner.

I've done a search on "black screen in Kubuntu 9.10", and tried some of the fixes, but none work. I have confirmed that desktop effects are not enable.

I tried to accomplish my purpose through the back door by installing Ubuntu 9.10 Beta -- installed and works flawlessly -- and then adding Kubuntu-Desktop.. Absolutely the same result with respect to what happens when I boot into the KDE desktop.

Any suggestions?

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

It's most likely a video hardware/driver issue.
You can get information on your video hardware with:

lspci | grep VGA

One thing you might try right off the bat is to disable compositing. That might get you to a functional screen.

Edit your ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc file.
Near the top of the file you will see the Compositing section. It looks something like this:

[Compositing]
AnimationSpeed=3
Backend=OpenGL 
DisableChecks=false
Enabled=true    
GLDirect=true   
GLMode=TFP     
GLTextureFilter=2 
GLVSync=true    
HiddenPreviews=5  
UnredirectFullscreen=false
XRenderSmoothScale=false

Change the Enabled line from true to false.
Then try restarting and see if that gives you a screen.

[trevor4706]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

Tried that, Dr Druid. The kwinrc file already shows enabled=false. I'm a bit confused as to how the old intel video card in my machine is completely compatible with Ubuntu 9.10, but obviously has some incompatibilities with Kubuntu 9.10 and/or KDE.

My video card is the old Intel 82845G integrated graphics device

[Snowhog]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

Okay, first, I'm not running Karmic - I'm on Jaunty. Second, I don't have your particular Intel graphics device, although it is Intel:

Graphics: Card Intel Mobile 945GM/GMS 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller

That said, this is what is in my [Compositing] section of kwinrc:

[Compositing]
AnimationSpeed=3
Backend=OpenGL
DisableChecks=false
Enabled=true
GLDirect=true
GLMode=TFP
GLTextureFilter=2
GLVSync=true
HiddenPreviews=5
XRenderSmoothScale=false

Note that I don't have the line:

UnredirectFullscreen=false

Try commenting this line out in your file and reboot. If it fixes things, great. If it doesn't, no harm done.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

Yeah, that is strange. One thing you might try, is from your ubuntu system, try installing the kubuntu-desktop package, as opposed to doing a fresh install of kubuntu. That will tell you right away if it's a kde problem.

[trevor4706]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

Yeah, that is strange. One thing you might try, is from your ubuntu system, try installing the kubuntu-desktop package, as opposed to doing a fresh install of kubuntu. That will tell you right away if it's a kde problem.

Tried that. Same result. Installed Xfce desktop as well to see what would happen. It works as advertised.

UnredirectFullscreen=false
Try commenting this line out in your file and reboot. If it fixes things, great. If it doesn't, no harm done.

Funny thing, when I tried to edit Kwinrc earlier in response to a suggestion from Dr Druid, it was a realtively large file containing the Compositing section. When I returned to it to try your suggestion, Snowhog, it only contained a couple of lines to do with monitors. Don't know what happened to it or how to renew it.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

Tried that. Same result. Installed Xfce desktop as well to see what would happen. It works as advertised.

Makes it unlikely to be a video driver problem, if the other desktops are working.
You might try some of the suggestions in this thread, as it does seem to be a plasma crash:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3106926.0

[trevor4706]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

Makes it unlikely to be a video driver problem, if the other desktops are working.
You might try some of the suggestions in this thread, as it does seem to be a plasma crash:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3106926.0

No joy. Same result -- blank screen with the mouse cursor. I even get the tone KDE gives when the desktop is ready to go.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

I guess the last-ditch suggestion would be to boot into the console, and

cd ~
sudo service kdm stop
mv .kde .kde-backup
sudo service kdm start

and see if you get a screen.
That's basically starting from scratch.
Given that gnome is working, I really don't know what plasma is choking on.

[wmrobins]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

My first line of attack with this type of problem in a Kubunto beta, is to wait two days, boot to a prompt is possible, run:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -f
sudo shutdown 0
Reboot into the latest Recovery Mode
select dpkg

This normally works for me.

[trevor4706]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

Here's what happened when I tried to execute the commands you suggested:

cd ~
sudo service kdm stop
stop: Unknown instance

Couldn't get to the renaming of .kde and restarting of kdm.

I'm about ready to give up on Kubuntu 9.10 and stick with Karmic Ubuntu and/or Xubuntu. There just doesn't seem to be any reason why I cannot get a fully functional desktop.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

OK, I'll bet what is happening is that since gnome is working, you are probably running with gdm and not kdm. I really don't know if that makes a difference, but it could.
So forget the kdm parts.
Go in either with gnome or from the console, and try renaming the .kde directory, and then try starting a new kde session.

The other alternative, which might work, is to go into the console, and try sudo dpkg-reconfigure kdm. I have always used kdm, so this is uncharted territory for me, but it may ask you if you want kdm to be the default; if it does, choose yes. You might be able to accomplish the same thing reconfiguring gdm, in which case you would tell it to use kdm as the default. You will have to restart the X server after doing this, for it to take effect. You can always get back to gdm with 'dpkg-reconfigure gdm', and choose gdm as the default.

I'm not sure what all the interactions are here, but it may be the kde will just choke if you try to start it with gdm.

I'm just giving you the things I would try, at this point.

[trevor4706]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

doctordruidphd

I tired both your suggestions to no avail. After switching the display manager to KDM was excited to see the Kubuntu login screen and the nice Kubuntu splash screen against the blue Kububtu background as the device-desktop-network-settings icons and finally the KDE logo appeared in sequence, then the scrren went blank/black and once again all I have is the mouse cursor. Very, very puzzling. It's almost like there's something in one of the files in the vanilla .kde directory that is preventing the KDE desktop from materializing.

Oh well, Ubuntu and Xubuntu still work well.

Thanks for all your help.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

I guess I'm pretty close to running out of ideas on this.
-----------------
Edit: Thinking more about it, since you can get to some apps on the crashed desktop, it's probably not anything wrong with your boot files or a runaway process. Your isntallation is probably missing some crucial file.
---------------------
You could check to see if kdebase-workspace-bin, libplasma3, python-plasma, kdelibs5, kdelibs5-data, and kdelibs-bin are all installed. Another possibility is that some other process is hogging all your resources while trying to start the desktop. If you can get from the blank screen to a console using CTRL-ALT-F2, then the top command would show if that is the case.

One other thing comes to mind, and it's a long shot, but you might try editing your /boot/grub/grub.cfg, and removing the 'quiet' 'splash' and vga= or gfxpayload= tags from the boot entry, just in case one or more of those is throwing your video card into some uncooperative mode. If that works, the changes can be made permanent by using startupmanager.

I have searched the forum for threads relating to plasma crashes, and while there are several, none seem to have solutions. So it would be nice to figure this out once and for all.

[trevor4706]

Re: Karmic Boots into a (somewhat) functional blank screen)

You could check to see if kdebase-workspace-bin, libplasma3, python-plasma, kdelibs5, kdelibs5-data, and kdelibs-bin are all installed.

Of the directories/files you mentioned, python-plasma is missing.

Another possibility is that some other process is hogging all your resources while trying to start the desktop. If you can get from the blank screen to a console using CTRL-ALT-F2, then the top command would show if that is the case.

Top shows nothing unusual. Two processes running, Xorg and Top, 116 or so sleeping.