Only root can "startx" to GUI. G3 Fallback only.

blackplague1347 · 2011-07-02 05:48:08

Hello.

I went through a long, arduous process today to get my fresh Arch install ready and up-to-date (which took longer than it should have, because it turned out I was using out-of-date mirrors).

I followed the Beginner's Guide and the Gnome 3 pages in the Wiki for my installation.

Now I have two problems:

1) my regular user (created as per the instructions in the Beginner's Guide) cannot "startx" into Gnome 3. Root user can, however. Is there a group that my regular user must be in for this to work? I installed Arch roughly last December using the same method, and don't recall encountering this problem, so I may just have missed something, though I'm not sure what. Prior to updating my entire system (again) with an up-to-date mirror, when I would run 'startx' as regular user, it would simply boot into X (no Desktop Environment - just X with three terminal windows open). Now it won't even accomplish that much.

I would prefer to do my login via console rather than, for example, gdm if possible.

2) when I get Gnome 3 running (as root), it goes directly into fallback mode, and I'm not sure why. I was able to use Gnome 3 with gnome-shell without any difficulties with Fedora 15. Could this be a video driver problem? I don't have any special graphics card; just Intel Integrated graphics. "lspci" tells me that it's "Mobile 4 Series Chipset". I'm almost certain that I installed the Intel video driver. Come to think of it, I may have installed Vesa as well. Would the Vesa driver (which, if I remember correctly, only provides 2d graphics and no hardware acceleration) take precedence over the Intel driver, thus causing Fallback mode?

EDIT: I removed Vesa. Root still gets Fallback mode. Regular user has the same problems as before, except there is a line added to the message in the console, which tells me that Vesa is missing. I'm trying to figure out how to get the message into a text file which I can post for you to look at. "startx >> file.txt" doesn't do it for me in the way that "dmesg >> file.txt" does. Sorry if this is a stupid problem. I'm not really very familiar with the command line yet.

Last edited by blackplague1347 (2011-07-02 06:04:08)

Wey · 2011-07-02 07:33:22

Hello blackplague,
dmesg writes to stdout, where most of the output from gnome goes to stderr. So you have to redirect stderr to the log file as well:

startx 2&> log

sumski · 2011-07-02 09:02:57

do you have xf86-video-intel and intel-dri installed? Also, did you modified your users .xinitrc to start gnome?

Last edited by sumski (2011-07-02 09:03:57)

ewaller · 2011-07-02 15:51:33

Is there a /.xinit for the user in question? You might check it for errors or post it here.

blackplague1347 · 2011-07-03 04:00:48

Thanks for the responses, everyone. Turns out the .xinitrc for my regular user was entirely commented out. I didn't even think to check it. Regular user can startx into gnome, just fine. As for fallback mode, I somehow managed to not install gnome-shell. I could have sworn that I had. After editing my .xinitrc for regular user, and running "startx 2&> file.txt" I looked at file.txt and, lo and behold, a line saying that the gnome-shell package was not installed. So thanks for that, everyone.

Two new problems, however.

1) regular user cannot add any applications (say, Epiphany) to the "favorites" launcher on the left side of the screen. Root can do it with no problems.

2) despite being in the "optical" and "storage" groups, regular user can neither mount, nor access my usb hard drive. My wireless drivers are stored on my external hard drive, and I could only retrieve them as root. My regular user is also in the "power" group, but cannot suspend the system. Only the option to shut down is present, when I click the user name at the top right of the screen. My regular user is in the "network" group as well, but is not allowed to connect to a wireless network. Did I do something wrong with user groups, or might there be some other reason my regular user can't do some of these things?

Shark · 2011-07-05 07:27:39

Hi

Try to write in .xinitrc:

exec ck-launch-session gnome-session

Comment out previous exec line.

Then:

startx

as a user and not root.

source

Last edited by Shark (2011-07-05 13:32:58)

Arch Linux

#1 2011-07-02 05:48:08

Only root can "startx" to GUI. G3 Fallback only.

#2 2011-07-02 07:33:22

Re: Only root can "startx" to GUI. G3 Fallback only.

#3 2011-07-02 09:02:57

Re: Only root can "startx" to GUI. G3 Fallback only.

#4 2011-07-02 15:51:33

Re: Only root can "startx" to GUI. G3 Fallback only.

#5 2011-07-03 04:00:48

Re: Only root can "startx" to GUI. G3 Fallback only.

#6 2011-07-05 07:27:39

Re: Only root can "startx" to GUI. G3 Fallback only.

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