Arch Linux

prismavoid08

Member

Registered: 2020-03-27

Posts: 15

Can't get Desktop Environments to Work in Arch VM

I installed Arch in virtualbox and wanted to run KDE on it. The first thing I did was

pacman -S plasma sddm

and select all options for download. When I rebooted, sddm loaded, but when I tried to get into KDE the screen went black. I decided to try GNOME instead to see if that would work, and that worked just fine using the GDM display manager. To test what the problem was, I tried KDE in GDM, and also installed LXQT, both of which didn't work. Even more confusing is when I tried GNOME using sddm, it didn't work.

TLDR: The only way I can get a DE working on Arch is with GNOME and GDM

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 13,368

Re: Can't get Desktop Environments to Work in Arch VM

The only way I can get a DE Display Manager   working on Arch is  with GNOME and GDM

There are lots of possibilities why that can go wrong, but the simplest way to troubleshoot starting X issues is testing without any DM.

Check https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xinit (make sure to follow the links on top right also)

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Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

Lizzi

Member

Registered: 2016-05-15

Posts: 40

Re: Can't get Desktop Environments to Work in Arch VM

You should read the wiki for sddm.  i installed lightdm and to get it running correctly i had to adjust a config file that was located in the /etc/lightdm directory.  Likely sddm has similar needs.  Also if you want autologin there are group permissions that need set as well.

Last edited by Lizzi (2020-05-26 21:14:29)

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BTW, I also use arch, gentoo, artix & manjaro

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,658

Re: Can't get Desktop Environments to Work in Arch VM

I tried to get into KDE the screen went black. I decided to try GNOME instead to see if that would work, and that worked just fine using the GDM display manager.

Is your KDE setup properly? Are you able to startx with KDE?

Last edited by d_fajardo (2020-05-27 07:46:15)