Arch Linux

jimmarch

Member

Registered: 2007-08-07

Posts: 27

Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

...so what I've got here is a weird mash-up between classic X-windows and Gnome.

Gnome is clearly there but the window manager is way off.

Ummm...like help?

I'm brand new to Arch, I have a year's worth of various .deb/.rpm systems...any assistance welcome.  Bigtime.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

welcome to arch

could you offer some more description of your problem? what exactly do you see?

Last edited by iphitus (2007-08-07 10:37:44)

jimmarch

Member

Registered: 2007-08-07

Posts: 27

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

Well...first, there's a classic X-term clock (no text, hands) and a couple of terminal windows, exactly as if you'd installed X-windows first, but not gnome/KDE/etc. yet.

But THEN Gnome starts loading.  Each window that pops up, you have to "place" on the screen - they're first "ghost boxes" connected to your mouse cursor and place where you click.  And each is labeled.  There are separate windows for "top expanded edge panel", "bottom expanded edge panel" (yeah, the normal top and bottom Gnome panels!), the desktop is a separate window, and then if you go applications-internet-firefox fr'instance, it runs but you can't resize it and you can't "overlap it" properly.

At one point I got an error saying "metacity" wasn't running.  Clearly there's no window manager going on.

On a hunch I tried:

pacman -S compiz

...hoping that I'd at least get a 3D window manager.  Nope.  It loaded just fine, but isn't "engaged" and I don't see the normal tool to turn it on.

If I do System>Administration>Login Window (the ONLY choice under "Administration", not a good sign!) I get an error:

"GDM (The GNOME Display Manager) is not running.

You might in fact be using a different display manager, such as KDM (KDE Display Manager) or xdm. If you still wish to use this feature, either start GDM yourself or ask your system administrator to start GDM."

It's WAY screwed up .

What else...I also tried:

pacman -S metacity

...which claimed to do a re-install.  Didn't help.

Tell ya what, this is one bare step up from "Linux From Scratch" or something?    Looks to be fast as hell though...

Hey, at least I got xorg.conf fully sorted out.  And got OpenOffice2.2 loaded so far.  I'm assuming somewhere on these forums/wiki(?) is a guide to multimedia - lbdvdcss, flash, wincodecs, etc?

Some basics: I have a low-grade but modern laptop, Intel950 video set to 128megs in BIOS, I'm running the I810 driver in xorg.conf, I got Ethernet going (my first clue this is a stone-cold byatch of a distro )...single core Celeron 1.6 with the 533 memory buss...I have 2gigs RAM though, bit of a saving grace.

Video is currently 1024x786, I put 1280x800 entries in xorg.conf but they're not taking.  In Ubuntu I'd use something called 915resolution to sort that out, I'm assuming it'll be similar here?

Thanks!

Jim

skymt

Member

Registered: 2006-11-27

Posts: 443

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

Can you give us a screenshot? Install the "scrot" (a screenshot tool) package, run it from a terminal, and post the image it saves.

funkyou

Member

From: Berlin, DE

Registered: 2006-03-19

Posts: 848

Website

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

How did you install gnome?

Here some suggestions...

- Read the Official Arch Linux Install Guide to check out that you have done everything right. Its very informative and should give you a good start... Read the system configuration and pacman section at least...

- Read the Gnome WIKI Entry on how to install Gnome.

- Enable the [community] repository in /etc/pacman.conf and install 915resolution. After installing, you can configure your mode in /etc/conf.d/915resolution and add the startup script to /etc/rc.conf

- If you want GDM on startup, just put "gdm" at the end of the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf

---

want a modular and tweaked KDE for arch? try kdemod

jimmarch

Member

Registered: 2007-08-07

Posts: 27

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

I did follow those, but something just didn't click somehow.

Installing the GDM daemon worked.  Had to create a user other than "root" of course and learn to do it on the command line...but no biggie, I now have a much more normal desktop .

Next: gotta do 915res, shouldn't be a problem.  And I'm not mounting USB drives yet, gotta wiki for that.  But overall...hmmm...progress anyhow .

Oh, I did take a "screenshot" of that bizarre desktop mode I got into...with a camera.  I'll post a pic or two .  What really blew me away was the demonstration of how insanely tough Linux in general and Arch in particular is.

Consider: here we have a whole section of the normal GUI blown out, and instead of puking/dying/crying-for-mama the way Windows does, it just reverts back to approximately 1996-ish level technology and in a staggering, crude fashion STILL WORKS.  Well enough to get online, get to a web-forum, scream for help , download patches/updates, even save data if I had any to save at this point.

When ANY part of Windows breaks, it all comes crashing to a blue-screen halt.  This thing staggered around like a zombie with multiple 12ga blasts and kept on it's feet.  kewl .

Jessehk

Member

From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2007-01-16

Posts: 152

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

What really blew me away was the demonstration of how insanely tough Linux in general and Arch in particular is.

jimmarch, I think it's important to realize that your circumstances are extraordinary. This is not the typical Arch experience.  As such, your comments are, to be frank, rude -- especially given the fact that members here are attempting to help you out. I'm not trying to be rude myself, but I think you could approach this differently.

Last edited by Jessehk (2007-08-07 21:38:50)

jimmarch

Member

Registered: 2007-08-07

Posts: 27

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

Wait: you misunderstood me completely.

You read "tough" as in "difficult to use".

I *meant* "tough" in the "durable as all hell" sense.  Re-read it in that light and you'll find I wasn't rude at all.  On the contrary, the extraordinary situation I was in (and I agree with you there) showed how unbelievably reliable Linux and Arch is.

veek

Member

Registered: 2006-03-10

Posts: 167

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

What really blew me away was the demonstration of how insanely tough Linux in general and Arch in particular is.

jimmarch, I think it's important to realize that your circumstance are extraordinary. This is not the typical Arch experience.  As such, your comments are, to be frank, rude -- especially given the fact that members here are attempting to help you out. I'm not trying to be rude myself, but I think you could approach this differently.

Jessehk, you misread jimmarch's intent He's saying Arch and Linux can take a beating without crashing.

Jessehk

Member

From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2007-01-16

Posts: 152

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

Oops. Sorry about that, jimmarch.

Last edited by Jessehk (2007-08-07 21:39:38)

jimmarch

Member

Registered: 2007-08-07

Posts: 27

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

Heh.  No sweat.  One thing though, I'm having trouble with external USB disk access...need that bad to load my data:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=36029

Any help appreciated.

As to Arch: I'd say it IS tough in the way you think I meant it, but...not THAT bad, it's obvious the issues can be worked through, the Wiki is pretty good and pacman looks like a damn fine package manager.

Automatic dependency handling raises this to "doable" yet doesn't (on it's own) weigh the critter down.  Not a bad gameplan.

ataraxia

Member

From: Pittsburgh

Registered: 2007-05-06

Posts: 1,553

Re: Truly bizarre: Gnome works, Metacity does NOT...

Since nobody mentioned it yet, the broken environment you had sounds like some GNOME stuff with twm as the window manager, and some of the "default" clients. As if both your own apps, and the default Xsession, were loading.