Gnome and gdm black screen with white dots (pixels really)

Sentenel · 2015-10-11 19:02:57

Greetings,

I have installed arch today, with gnome, and it worked fine, then after I installed catalyst it just shows a black screen and some dots on it, I have no idea what to do, I googled this problem but nothing came out, please help!

BTW my graphics card is Radeon R7 260X

Edit: I have installed xfce4 and it works fine, but I really like gnome and would like to use it if possible, if not, at least to understand why it isn't working properly.

Thanks in advance
Sentenel

Last edited by Sentenel (2015-10-11 19:03:56)

BloodyAngel75 · 2015-10-11 23:58:33

Hey Sentenel,

I've got the same issue using the catalyst-test driver and gnome version 3.18.
Since I'm fairly new to Arch Linux myself I just downgraded gnome to version 3.16, which is working fine in my case.

This approach may also lead to package issues later on!
So you have to decide if you stick with xfce, change your driver to the opensource driver or use the old gnome 3.16.

If you like to go my rout as well, you may downgrade package using the AUR package "downgrade" simple use:
downgrade <pkg>
and choose a package version

Since a lot a packages have to be downgraded(~70), another (potentially simpler) approach is to use the "Arch Rollback Machine", however i haven't used this myself
More info: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ar … ck_Machine

More info on downgrading packages in general:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Do … g_packages

Additionally you have to ignore all updates for these packages.
If you're aware of the downsides to this approach and still want to go though, i can write all package I downgraded/ignored

Best regards
Angel

Knalltuete · 2015-10-12 08:07:38

Hey,

I am having the same issue. A black screen and a white dot in the top left corner. Additionally some further wihte dots at random locations on the screen.
Downgrading gdm-3.18 to gdm-3.16 did not work for me. I am still having the same issues.

I am using a Radeon HD 6950 with catalyst driver from the aur.

journalctl -u gdm schows nothing interesting.

Any help is appreciated!

EDIT: I switched from GDM to LXDM and am now able to log in. Unfortunately Gnome is showing the same black screen with the white dots.

Last edited by Knalltuete (2015-10-12 08:53:50)

BloodyAngel75 · 2015-10-12 20:14:51

Hey,

as i mentioned i downgraded a lot of packages. If you're aware of the problems that may occur later on I present a more or less simple version to downgrade these packages:

1. Add the following line at the beginning of your "/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist" file

 Server=http://seblu.net/a/arm/2015/10/07/$repo/os/$arch

This line will allow you to download all packages before the gnome 3.18 update.
More info can be found at the Arch Rollback Machine website.

2. Afterwards downgrade all necessary files. Some possible commands could look like this:

sudo pacman -Syy clutter-gst clutter-gtk gtkmm3 gtksourceview3 adwaita-icon-theme baobab cheese clutter empathy eog epiphany evince evolution;
sudo pacman -Syy evolution-data-server gcr gdm geocode-glib gitg gnome-backgrounds gnome-bluetooth gnome-calculator gnome-color-manager gnome-contacts gnome-control-center;
sudo pacman -Syy gnome-desktop gnome-dictionary gnome-disk-utility gnome-font-viewer gnome-keyring gnome-online-accounts gnome-screenshot gnome-session gnome-settings-daemon;
sudo pacman -Syy gnome-shell gnome-shell-extensions gnome-system-monitor gnome-terminal gnome-themes-standard gnome-tweak-tool gnome-user-docs gnome-user-share grilo;
sudo pacman -Syy grilo-plugins gsettings-desktop-schemas gtk-update-icon-cache gucharmap gvfs gvfs-mtp libtracker-sparql mutter nautilus pygobject-devel;
sudo pacman -Syy python-gobject python2-gobject simple-scan sushi totem tracker vino yelp yelp-tools yelp-xsl zenity;

Notes:
- Since I'm using some gnome plugins, there might be some packages that aren't required to be installed/downgraded.
- I suggest you issue each of these lines separately to avoid some issues i had

3. Ignore all further updates on those files by adjusting your "/etc/pacman.conf" (in section "[options]") file. The list of lines I added:

IgnorePkg=clutter
IgnorePkg=clutter-gst
IgnorePkg=clutter-gtk
IgnorePkg=gtkmm3
IgnorePkg=gtksourceview3
IgnorePkg=adwaita-icon-theme
IgnorePkg=baobab
IgnorePkg=cheese
IgnorePkg=empathy
IgnorePkg=eog
IgnorePkg=epiphany
IgnorePkg=evince
IgnorePkg=evolution
IgnorePkg=evolution-data-server
IgnorePkg=gcr
IgnorePkg=gdm
IgnorePkg=geocode-glib
IgnorePkg=gitg
IgnorePkg=gnome-backgrounds
IgnorePkg=gnome-bluetooth
IgnorePkg=gnome-calculator
IgnorePkg=gnome-color-manager
IgnorePkg=gnome-contacts
IgnorePkg=gnome-control-center
IgnorePkg=gnome-desktop
IgnorePkg=gnome-dictionary
IgnorePkg=gnome-disk-utility
IgnorePkg=gnome-font-viewer
IgnorePkg=gnome-keyring
IgnorePkg=gnome-online-accounts
IgnorePkg=gnome-screenshot
IgnorePkg=gnome-session
IgnorePkg=gnome-settings-daemon
IgnorePkg=gnome-shell
IgnorePkg=gnome-shell-extensions
IgnorePkg=gnome-system-monitor
IgnorePkg=gnome-terminal
IgnorePkg=gnome-themes-standard
IgnorePkg=gnome-tweak-tool
IgnorePkg=gnome-user-docs
IgnorePkg=gnome-user-share
IgnorePkg=grilo
IgnorePkg=grilo-plugins
IgnorePkg=gsettings-desktop-schemas
IgnorePkg=gtk-update-icon-cache
IgnorePkg=gucharmap
IgnorePkg=gvfs
IgnorePkg=gvfs-mtp
IgnorePkg=libtracker-sparql
IgnorePkg=mutter
IgnorePkg=nautilus
IgnorePkg=pygobject-devel
IgnorePkg=python-gobject
IgnorePkg=python2-gobject
IgnorePkg=simple-scan
IgnorePkg=sushi
IgnorePkg=totem
IgnorePkg=tracker
IgnorePkg=vino
IgnorePkg=yelp
IgnorePkg=yelp-tools
IgnorePkg=yelp-xsl
IgnorePkg=zenity

More information on ignoring packages

4. Remove the added line from your "/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist" file and you're (hopefully) done.

As a side note, I'm using LXDM instead of GDM.
I hope this works for you too.
Good luck

Sentenel · 2015-10-14 22:34:13

Greetings to all of you,

And thankyou for your responces, after some testing, I decided to go with the open source driver, thus solving then gnome black screen problem. Somehow, I get the same performace (maybe even slightly better in csgo with free driver, go figure) with both drivers. Also I have tried unity and pantheon , and nether of them work with catalyst, they have the same problem as gnome, I guess because they all use similar shells?

Edit: I have jsut tested catalyst with downgraded gnome (3.16) and it seems to work ok, still sticking with the radeon driver and newest gnome.

Kind regards
Sentenel

Last edited by Sentenel (2015-10-14 22:36:11)

bkuma75 · 2015-10-15 01:18:24

Sentenel wrote:

Greetings to all of you,
And thankyou for your responces, after some testing, I decided to go with the open source driver, thus solving then gnome black screen problem. Somehow, I get the same performace (maybe even slightly better in csgo with free driver, go figure) with both drivers. Also I have tried unity and pantheon , and nether of them work with catalyst, they have the same problem as gnome, I guess because they all use similar shells?
Edit: I have jsut tested catalyst with downgraded gnome (3.16) and it seems to work ok, still sticking with the radeon driver and newest gnome.
Kind regards
Sentenel

Glad everything worked out for you, what video card are you using?

Vi0L0 · 2015-10-18 14:59:17

As said on AMD/ATI bar & grill:
GNOME 3.18 fix
In [catalyst] and [catalyst-stable] you may find a new package cogl 1.22.0-2. It brings fix for recent problems with new GNOME 3.18 and new GDM (it baheves strange with plasma though, after choosing plasma and entering password I have to switch to tty and then back to X to see plasma desktop, probably another bug).
Source and a patch is here: http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr/archl … src.tar.gz
patch itself:

--- 122/cogl/driver/gl/gl/cogl-driver-gl.c	2015-09-02 18:39:02.000000000 +0200
+++ 122b/cogl/driver/gl/gl/cogl-driver-gl.c	2015-10-18 10:37:14.052350142 +0200
@@ -419,7 +419,7 @@
   if (COGL_CHECK_GL_VERSION (ctx->glsl_major, ctx->glsl_minor, 1, 2))
     /* We want to use version 120 if it is available so that the
      * gl_PointCoord can be used. */
-    ctx->glsl_version_to_use = 120;
+    ctx->glsl_version_to_use = 150;
   else
     ctx->glsl_version_to_use = 110;

Last edited by Vi0L0 (2015-10-18 15:00:30)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-10-11 19:02:57

Gnome and gdm black screen with white dots (pixels really)

#2 2015-10-11 23:58:33

Re: Gnome and gdm black screen with white dots (pixels really)

#3 2015-10-12 08:07:38

Re: Gnome and gdm black screen with white dots (pixels really)

#4 2015-10-12 20:14:51

Re: Gnome and gdm black screen with white dots (pixels really)

#5 2015-10-14 22:34:13

Re: Gnome and gdm black screen with white dots (pixels really)

#6 2015-10-15 01:18:24

Re: Gnome and gdm black screen with white dots (pixels really)

#7 2015-10-18 14:59:17

Re: Gnome and gdm black screen with white dots (pixels really)

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