Arch Linux

okwump

Member

Registered: 2018-07-09

Posts: 4

SDDM gives black screen - but shows mouse cursor

Hi all!
I am a total newby with arch and need some help with my fresh installation.
it's installed and bootable. to setup a gui I decided to install xorg and xfce, which seemed to work. so startx gives me a xconsole.

nevertheless the following snippet gives me only a black screen with a mouse cursor.

systemctl start sddm.service

Changing the default theme in /etc/sddm.conf didn't help. so can you?

btw. I already added user sddm to group video.

all the best and thanks in advance!

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,257

Re: SDDM gives black screen - but shows mouse cursor

Can you post more information? i.e. Graphics driver, xorg logs, journal?

Not an installation issue, moving to NC

okwump

Member

Registered: 2018-07-09

Posts: 4

Re: SDDM gives black screen - but shows mouse cursor

Oh sure, thanks for moving. I am using the nouveau-driver. Hardware is a mid-2010 macbook (like 7,1).

# uname -a

Linux ***** 4.17.4-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Jul 3 15:45:09 UTC 2018 x86_64 GNU/Linux

# cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log

https://ptpb.pw/GU-G

# journalctl -b | grep sddm

https://ptpb.pw/jRra

I also tried to generate a  new config-file, but it didn't help yet.

# sddm --example-config > /etc/sddm.conf

Some other things I tried:

# sddm --test-mode

/usr/bin/xauth: (stdin):1:  bad "remove" command line
/usr/bin/xauth: (stdin):2:  bad "add" command line
...
repeating until ctrl+c

# xrandr

Can't open display

Last edited by okwump (2018-07-10 07:33:56)

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,652

Re: SDDM gives black screen - but shows mouse cursor

sddm-greeter[826]: segfault at 1a ip 00007fe849b2890d sp 00007ffdbb799fb0 error 4 in nouveau_dri.so[7fe849498000+b6d000]
It looks like the driver is creating a segfault. I don't have a solution but maybe you can trace the fault.

okwump

Member

Registered: 2018-07-09

Posts: 4

Re: SDDM gives black screen - but shows mouse cursor

Okay, thanks. Can you provide any hints how to do that?

----
Here are some additional logs:

# systemctl start sddm.service
# systemctl status sddm.service

● sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/sddm.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Tue 2018-07-10 10:15:38 CEST; 30min ago
     Docs: man:sddm(1)
           man:sddm.conf(5)
 Main PID: 3469 (sddm)
    Tasks: 4 (limit: 4915)
   Memory: 27.6M
   CGroup: /system.slice/sddm.service
           ├─3469 /usr/bin/sddm
           └─3476 /usr/lib/Xorg -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{172b9d2c-e124-42d2-bd40-de2cabbcd5f4} -background none -noreset -displayfd 17 -seat seat0 vt1

Jul 10 10:15:40 blabla sddm[3469]: Greeter starting...
Jul 10 10:15:40 blabla sddm[3469]: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/{172b9d2c-e124-42d2-bd40-de2cabbcd5f4}"
Jul 10 10:15:40 blabla sddm-helper[3483]: [PAM] Starting...
Jul 10 10:15:40 blabla sddm-helper[3483]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Jul 10 10:15:40 blabla sddm-helper[3483]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm by (uid=0)
Jul 10 10:15:40 blabla sddm-helper[3483]: [PAM] returning.
Jul 10 10:15:40 blabla sddm[3469]: Greeter session started successfully
Jul 10 10:15:41 blabla sddm[3469]: Message received from greeter: Connect
Jul 10 10:15:43 blabla sddm[3469]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 11
Jul 10 10:15:43 blabla sddm[3469]: Greeter stopped.

# lspci -nnk | grep iA2 vga

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation MCP89 [GeForce 320M] [10de:08a0] (rev a2)
	Subsystem: Apple Inc. MCP89 [GeForce 320M] [106b:00ce]
	Kernel driver in use: nouveau

And from X11-Session:

# startx
# xrandr

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS-1 connected primary 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
   1280x800      60.00*+
   1024x768      59.95  
   800x600       59.96  
   640x480       59.94  
   720x400       59.97  
   640x400       59.96  
   640x350       59.84  
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Last edited by okwump (2018-07-10 08:57:55)

okwump

Member

Registered: 2018-07-09

Posts: 4

Re: SDDM gives black screen - but shows mouse cursor

Some additional information, because in some threads this is also discussed. I am using a mid-2010-Macbook (7,1) in UEFI-mode with only arch linux installed.

Next thing I am going to try is the installation of the Nvidia-driver instead of nouveau. Hopefully this will work.

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,652

Re: SDDM gives black screen - but shows mouse cursor

Okay, thanks. Can you provide any hints how to do that?

You can run coredumpctl list to list the segmentation fault. Then you'll find the PID of the problematic process. Then coredumpctrl gdb PID# to inspect it further.
Info here