Subject: cant get to desktop anymore

From: bell canada <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:28:57 -0400

hello i installed debian 8 and i cant get into my desktop..why plz help

roberto
438 881 9269
all i get is ablack scren
even recory mode doesnt help

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From: Kent West <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 17:00:01 -0500

> hello i installed debian 8 and i cant get into my desktop..why plz help

Do you get to a login prompt at all (graphical or text-based)?

What happens if you press Ctrl-Alt-F2?

-- 
Kent West                    <")))><
Westing Peacefully - http://kentwest.blogspot.com

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From: Frank McCormick <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 21:42:31 -0400

On 18/09/16 07:57 PM, Ric Moore wrote:
> On 09/18/2016 06:00 PM, Kent West wrote:
>> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 3:28 PM, bell canada <[email-masked]
>> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>>
>>     438 881 9269 <tel:438%20881%209269>
> If the OP would do that, login as his user and enter "startx", I bet a
> donut that he gets to his desktop. Mine is STILL boroken that way
> ...POS. synaptic isn't fixed yet. <sighs> Someone just shoot me. Ric
>
>

   I'll shoot you if you promise to return the favor :) The whole Mate
desktop is broken because of GTK 3.2whatever :)

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From: Ric Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2016 17:01:02 -0400

> desktop is broken because of GTK 3.2whatever :)

I promise. The only upside is that all those Ubuntu users will be soon 
crying like grandmothers. That is a sad way to think. <evil cackles> Ric

-- 
My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
http://linuxcounter.net/user/44256.html

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From: Dominic Knight <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 17:07:48 +0100

On Mon, 2016-09-19 at 17:01 -0400, Ric Moore wrote:
> > > >     hello i installed debian 8 and i cant get into my
> > > > desktop..why plz
> > > > help
> > > > 
> > > >     roberto
I can re-create this in some way although maybe not the same as the OP
as not enough information is given.

Normally when installing a secondary system on the box here, it would
format the swap space giving it a new UUID, I would get the prompt when
starting up about not being able to load the swap space, wait 90 secs
then boot without one and edit fstab to reflect the new UUID.
However, when not using nouveau drivers (in my case Nvidias latest
361.45.18-2 kernel modules) if the wrong UUID is present you will be
given a black screen and no possibility of using ctrl-alt-f1 > 7 only
command that works is ctrl-alt-del. Also recovery mode dumps you to the
exact same problem - plain black screen. 
Edit the fstab from another system and you are back to having a normal
log-in.

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From: Ric Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 19:57:58 -0400

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From: Stephen Powell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 16:32:48 -0400

> ...POS. synaptic isn't fixed yet. <sighs> Someone just shoot me. Ric

After a recent stretch upgrade, I experienced a similar problem.
I use the XFCE4 desktop environment, the lightdm login daemon, and
systemd as my init system.

After "upgrading" and rebooting, I got a black screen with a mouse pointer.
And that was it.  I used the following procedure as a work-around:

I used Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to a text console.  I logged in as root.
I issued

systemctl stop lightdm.service
systemctl disable lightdm.service

then I exited the root login session, logged in on the text console
as my normal non-superuser self, and issued

startx -- vt7 &

This brought up my normal XFCE4 desktop on vt7, bypassing the lightdm login
daemon.  Of course after a reboot, the two systemctl commands won't be
needed.  The lightdm service will no longer start.

I did notice one thing peculiar.  startx output is written to the terminal
of vt1, of course, even though it's running as a background task.  And I got
the error message

modprobe: FATAL: Module mach64 not found in directory /lib/modules/xxx

where xxx is the identity of the running kernel.  Strange.  The kernel has
never had a mach64 module in it, as far as I know.  mach64 is the name
of the X driver, but there is no kernel module by that name.

I obviously don't like using this work-around, but I can at least limp
along until somebody somewhere fixes this problem.

-- 
  .''`.     Stephen Powell    <[email-masked]>
 : :'  :
 `. `'`
   `-

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From: Stephen Powell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 16:52:18 -0400

> of the X driver, but there is no kernel module by that name.

One other thing I noticed.  It may or may not be related.  "web" (i.e.
epiphany-browser) is broken.  When I click on the icon for changing settings
(including listing bookmarks), nothing happens.  I switched back to chromium,
which seems to be working fine.

Lovely "upgrade", Debian!

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From: Ric Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 02:25:47 -0400

> Lovely "upgrade", Debian!

AHHA!! Check /var/log/lightdm/seat0-greeter.log
Yup, GTK warning:

(lightdm-gtk-greeter:690): Gtk-WARNING **: Drawing a gadget with
negative dime
nsions. Did you forget to allocate a size? (node menubar owner
GreeterMenuBar)
There is a zillion of those warnings. Are you seeing this Stephan??
Anyone else?? Is anyone seeing gtk being reported in the bug track?? Ric

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From: Ric Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 00:41:03 -0400

> Lovely "upgrade", Debian!

There seems to be some sort of gtk3 issue, which screws up synaptic for 
me just like epiphany does for you. None of the drop downs work. That 
might account for your browser problem as well. Deity only knows, but 
running sid has finally lived up to the "can break" rep. I'm not crying 
about it, I'm holding the broken pieces and am willing to provide 
whatever logs needed by whomever is responsible.  Cheers, Ric

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From: Zoltán Hermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:02:37 +0200

Or it may be that no
permission, for example, is not his .Xauthority, .xsession file

wrong file ownership, which can be fixed by
sudo chown username.usergroup /home/username/.Xauthority

wrong file permissions, which can be fixed by
sudo chmod u=rw go= /home/username/.Xauthority
//or chmod +755 ...

But it can be like a part of the epiphany-browser...

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From: "Neal P. Murphy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 20:33:23 -0400

On Sun, 18 Sep 2016 19:57:58 -0400

> ...POS. synaptic isn't fixed yet. <sighs> Someone just shoot me. Ric

<CTRL><ALT><F7> will reach the X11 session. If it started. If not, it could be that a default xdm session (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, etc.) wasn't selected or a desktop 'task' wasn't installed.

Console #7 is the standard console used for X11. Console #1 is the default console when there is no default X11 session.

If Roberto gets only a black screen with nothing on it, he may have a problem with his video driver.

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From: Ric Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2016 16:57:12 -0400

On 09/18/2016 08:33 PM, Neal P. Murphy wrote:
> <CTRL><ALT><F7> will reach the X11 session.

Thank you for the heads up. But, we were advising ctrl-alt-f2 and I 
advised he login as his user and type startx. >IF< he gets to his 
desktop, then he has the same problem I have. I'm expecting others pop 
up with the very same problem. Ric

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From: Greg Wooledge <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2016 09:31:10 -0400

> Console #7 is the standard console used for X11. Console #1 is the default console when there is no default X11 session.

That was true in wheezy.  It's not true in jessie.

In jessie, running with systemd by default, the display manager takes
over the *first* virtual console (Ctrl-Alt-F1).  The first console with
a getty is therefore Ctrl-Alt-F2.

Of course, if there is no display manager installed at all, then Ctrl-Alt-F1
should have a getty running on it once the system boots.  But as soon as
you run startx, X takes over the *first* console (not the seventh)
and you're right back to the same situation as if you had used a display
manager.

(I use startx on jessie, so I speak from direct personal experience,
tested right now.)

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From: Brian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2016 15:23:30 +0100

> a getty is therefore Ctrl-Alt-F2.

We must be using different Jessies. gdm3 with GNOME comes up on vt7.

> and you're right back to the same situation as if you had used a display

Not my experience.

>From the xinit changelog:

  * 10-startx-Under-Linux-start-X-on-the-current-VT.patch,
    11-startx-Pass-vtX-as-long-as-the-user-did-not-specify-.patch: By default
    start the server on the current VT, this is necessary to avoid logind to
    see the startx session as inactive (Closes: #743015 LP: #1247484)

-- 
Brian.

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From: Lisi Reisz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2016 14:43:12 +0100

On Monday 19 September 2016 14:31:10 Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > <CTRL><ALT><F7> will reach the X11 session. If it started. If not, it
> > could be that a default xdm session (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, etc.) wasn't
> > selected or a desktop 'task' wasn't installed.
> >
> > Console #7 is the standard console used for X11. Console #1 is the
> > default console when there is no default X11 session.
>
> Of course, if there is no display manager installed at all, then
> Ctrl-Alt-F1 should have a getty running on it once the system boots.  But
> as soon as you run startx, X takes over the *first* console (not the
> seventh) and you're right back to the same situation as if you had used a
> display manager.
>

In the Jessie I am currently using (recently freshly installed, but with /home 
added from my sickly desktop),  Ctrl-Alt-x restarts X.  And no, that isn't a 
left-over in /home. At least, I have never known it before!!

Lisi