Cannot start plasma 5

motaito · 2015-02-07 00:25:46

Hi

I am a bit of a linux noob but I wanted to look at arch for learning purposes. So, I made an arch install. I got my setup with an uefi boot on a 64bit machine. After the install I could successfully boot into a tty. From there I tried to get plasma running. I did

pacman -S plasma sddm
systemctl enable sddm

After that I could not boot the system. It hangs right away during a file system check. So, I switched to tty2 and disabled sddm. This way I can boot normally into a tty. From there I tried to startx but it failed. So, I did

pacman -S xorg-xinit xterm

I can then startx from the tty and it works. However, I can not start the plasma desktop. startkde fails. If I enable sddm again. It still keeps hanging on the file system check. No change. Also, I can not abort the check. No keyboard input is recognized except I can switch to another tty and shutdown from there. I have also tried to startkde from the x session after startx but that also fails.

Since I have an optimus laptop I thought maybe the video driver is a problem. I added

pacman -S xf86-video-intel

but that changed nothing. I can not find anything online and I don't know how to debug the problem. Can anyone help me get plasma up and running or give me a hint where to find further info?

Or is the kf5 framework not ready yet? Should I stick to kde4 and try with it first?

Any input is greatly appreciated!

P.s. the registration security question is a bit extreme. Since my system is not up and running completely I have no smb to connect to another pc and no useful browser running. I had to generate the answer there and manually type it on my windows box to be able to register...

ewaller · 2015-02-07 00:53:06

Welcome to Arch Linux. You did make it through the registration question -- congratulations. There are on-line javascript based emulators that do work, but that is moot since you are now here

As to the other issue -- slow down, you are flailing a bit. You got X running; excellent. Let's ignore sddm for now. Put together a ~/.xinitrc file that looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
#
# ~/.xinitrc
#
# Executed by startx (run your window manager from here)

if [ -d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d ]; then
  for f in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/*; do
    [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
  done
  unset f
fi

exec startkde

And then run startx from the console. Report back.

motaito · 2015-02-07 01:25:02

Thanks for the quick reply!

I wasn't sure whether to do this as root or as user. So, I logged in as root and created the file in the home folder of the root account. I figured if I can do it as root, I can later also set it up for a user. After that it starts up showing a cursor and shortly after some (four identical) popups titled "plasmashell". They show an error:

We are sorry plasmashell closed unexpectedly.
You cannot report this error because plasmashell does not provide a bug reporting address.
Details: Executable plasmashell PID 613 Signal Aborted (6) Time 2/7/15 2:15:55

After that it keeps hanging. (I got the same error before when trying to startkde after startx)

Last edited by motaito (2015-02-07 01:27:37)

ewaller · 2015-02-07 01:56:27

Please, please don't run KDE as root. It is your system and you can, of course, do as you will. I can't help you if that is how you wish to run it. As an experiment, I understand; but is still a poor choice. I would like to see the Xorg.0.log file, but I have no concept where it will go when run as root. It might go to /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

If you would, please make that file for a normal user and run startx. Then, if (when) it fails, please post the contents of .local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log
I realize you do not have a working X environment, so to post that, consider installing wgetpaste and use it to get a link. Share that link here. Here is an example of how to do it for my log file:

ewaller@odin ~ 1006 %wgetpaste -s dpaste .local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log      
Pasting > 25 kB often tend to fail with dpaste. Use --verbose or --debug to see the
error output from wget if it fails. Alternatively use another pastebin service.
Your paste can be seen here: http://dpaste.com/32FW2TD
ewaller@odin ~ 1007 %

Also, post the .xinitrc so we can check it.

motaito · 2015-02-07 02:23:18

I did not realize running KDE as root is not a good idea. I thought as long as I'm installing and setting up the system it should not matter. I will avoid it from here on out.

I copied the file to my normal users home and deleted the other one from the root. The result is the same. Here is the output from wgetpaste for the .xinitrc http://dpaste.com/05R8RWG (nice tool, didn't know about it before).

However, my users .local/share contains no folder xorg. So, there is also not a Xorg.0.log. Is it possible that I need to add the user to a specific group so he can use x and thus generate the files in question?

motaito · 2015-02-07 13:42:55

Sorry, it was too late to think yesterday... I have meanwhile read the xorg wiki again. I tend to overlook things, as I am dyslexic, but I found the log in another directory. Here is the output of Xorg.0.log http://dpaste.com/04XSY7P

ewaller · 2015-02-07 15:41:09

Looking at those, I don't think it is a problem with Xorg. I think the problem lies in the KDE configuration.
So, how did you install kde and what packages are installed. Look (or wgetpaste) your /var/log/pacman.log

motaito · 2015-02-07 16:15:24

I installed exactly as described in my initial post. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KDE#Plasma_5 mentions that you can not install KDE4 and plasma at the same time. So, I did not install KDE4 at all and only used

pacman -S plasma sddm
systemctl enable sddm

Then I followed https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/plasma and https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SDDM to start plasma. After that failed, I added the remaining steps mentioned in my initial post.

Here is the output form wgetpase for /var/log/pacman.log
http://dpaste.com/2D56T4V

Thanks for your help!

pekka · 2015-02-07 18:37:07

I have same problems

Can you try

Disable sddm ,reboot, in tty log in (root) and start manual sddm (systemctl start sddm)

Kinokoio · 2015-02-07 18:58:10

Have you tried pacman -S xorg ?

I installed plasma + sddm a few days ago and there was no problem at all.

ewaller · 2015-02-07 19:25:33

His xorg seems to work. He brought it up with twm, but kde/plasma are not starting. I have not tried running plasma without having had kde4 installed first. Something is missing, but i have not found it yet.

pekka · 2015-02-07 19:51:13

Yep i know, but "I have same problems"

enable sddm and xorg/sddm/kde not start.

but if
Disable sddm ,reboot, in tty log in (root) and start manual sddm (systemctl start sddm) , sddm/kde start normal

My solution
later add nfs share and enble systemd-networkd-wait-online
then enble ssdm and kde start right.

I think boot is too quick (sddm start before xorg ?)
but nfs mount slow litle bit boot proses and sddm start normal ????

motaito · 2015-02-07 21:13:45

Thanks everyone for the inputs.

So far, if I remove the .xinitrc script, I can start xorg. If the file is in place I get the error described above with the plasmashells popping up.

I tried pekka's suggestion by logging in as root and manually start sddm. From that I get black screen and nothing happens at all. I also tried to remove the .xinitrc script then startx and from there start sddm. Then I get this error:

Failed to start sddm.service: Interactive authentication required

It feels like pekka is right. Something is missing.

I thought xorg is a dependency of plasma. Pacman shows me that I have at least

xorg-server
xorg-server-common

installed.

I only explicitly installed

pacman -S xorg-xinit xterm

With pacman I can see that I have no other xorg related things installed. Maybe I need any of these

xorg-twn
xorg-utils
xorg-xdm

Also,

pacman -Ss xorg

shows a lot of entries most are not installed. It might pull in some that will mess up the system more. I am hesitant to just try, because it might mess up the system more and make it harder to find the problem.

If it is more common to install KDE4 fist and then convert it to plasma, I have no problem trying it that way. But following the wiki I understood that it should not be necessary.

motaito · 2015-02-08 06:14:51

I found these tutorials https://www.youtube.com/user/kyauorg/videos. They are about 2 years old, but from what I can tell they are still relevant. According to the "From post-install to Xorg" video I left out a few steps. I should have set up Xorg first and not have it pulled it in as a dependency from plasma. Then I would have had more control over it and a more complete install.

Following to the tutorial I added

xorg-server-utils
xf86-video-vesa
xorg-twm

then reinstalled

nvidia
nvidia-libgl
nvidia-utils

and finally issued the command

sudo nvidia-xconfig

I then removed the .xinitrc to check that I can use startx. This didn't work because the file generated by nvidia-xconfig was wrong. I renamed it and tried without. Then I can use startx. So, I added the .xinitrc file again and tried to startx again. Like this I get an error in a popup

Could not start kdeinit5. Check your installation.

If I press OK in the popup, x stops and I am back in tty. Here I have some console output that contains the following error

... Starting up.../usr/bin/kdeinit5: error while loading shard libraries: libGL.so.1: cannot open shared object file

here are the logfiles:
/var/log/Xorg.0.log -> http://dpaste.com/37N2EH6
/usr/bin/kdeinit5 -> http://dpaste.com/2KSM0C5

In case this is a graphic issue, I have an old notebook with nvidia optimus.

lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GTX660M] (rev a1)

Having had issues with optimus in the past, I am trying to get the intel graphics chip to work first. I can worry about the nvidia card later.

I think I am a bit closer, but still no joy. Not sure what to do next

Last edited by motaito (2015-02-08 06:16:19)

pekka · 2015-02-08 08:59:32

Maybe missing sddm.conf in /etc/

Try Install sddm-kcm

Scimmia · 2015-02-08 09:22:45

sddm.conf is not required.

motaito · 2015-02-08 13:52:57

From reading the wiki sddm is the display manager and not strictly required. I think Scimmia is right it's not likely the culprit.

However, since I installed xorg-twm the error message changed. I figured maybe I will also need xord-xdm and installed it to see what happens. I still get

Could not start kdeinit5. Check your installation.

I think the problem is here (in the console output after shutting down x)

startkde: Starting up ... /usr/bin/kdeinit5: error while loading shared libraries: libGL.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I have

ls -l /usr/lib | grep -i 'libgl.so'
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Jan 18 22:30 libGL.so -> libGL.so.346.35

(Am I understanding the syntax correctly by interpreting it as a symlink?) Anyway, there is no libGL.so.1 listed. I don't think I can just download some libGL.so.1 somewhere or make another symlink like "libGL.so.1 -> libGL.so.346.35". What is the correct way of getting libGL.so.1? Do I need to somehow configure kernel modules?

edit:
I added a tool mlocate, so I can use this

locate libGL.so.1
/usr/lib/mesa/libGL.so.1
/usr/lib/mesa/libGL.so.1.2.0
/usr/lib/nvidia/libGL.so.1

Looks like there are two libGL.so.1 on my system. How do I know which is the correct one and can I simply make a symlink to it?

Last edited by motaito (2015-02-08 14:38:46)

motaito · 2015-02-08 16:06:53

For good measures I tried making the symlinks. Regardless to which libGL.so.1 I'm linking, when using startx the "plasmashell" popup contains an error about a segmentation fault. I think it is trying to use the nvidia card which does not work because I have a muxles notebook with optimus. Afaik this requires me to set up the system to use intel and later make use of nvidia using bumblebee. For now I have removed the symlink again. Can I somehow ensure that intel graphics is used instead? Or am I on the wrong track?

Out of curiosity. Is plasma/kf5 considered ready to use or still under development? Maybe I should first try to get KDE4 running?

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-02-08 16:34:33

Do not make any symlinks -- these should not be needed.

Try disabling your NVIDIA card from your firmware (BIOS) options and see if Plasma will boot up then.

motaito · 2015-02-08 19:41:52

It's a muxles system. So, I can't disable the nvidia card from the BIOS.

motaito · 2015-02-09 18:15:35

I am fairly certain that I have more than one issue but mostly a problem with the graphics setup. I have also tried to follow the optimus wiki, but no success. Since, I am doing this as an arch-learning project I think it makes most sense to wipe my install and try a KDE4 setup first. Then try to convert it to plasma 5 and finally try again with installing plasma 5 directly. Hopefully by then I have a better grip on what's going on. I already learned some places where I made rocky mistakes thanks to your inputs. I would also like to thank everyone again for the help. It's very much appreciated!

GunnDawg · 2015-06-28 06:15:55

For what it is worth. I'm having EXACTLY the same issues that motaito is having. fresh install of arch. Installed and verified Xorg to be working with twm, then installed plasma and added exec startkde to my xinitrc and get nothing but a black screen with bug splat errors relating to plasma shell and krunner.

jasonwryan · 2015-06-30 09:19:29

Not an Installation issue, moving to NC...

goulashsoup · 2015-10-12 20:07:05

Hello everyone,

I am new to linux (and also in this forum), but I might figure out whats wrong with everything:

1. First of all it is important (for nvidia-graphics) to know which driver you need for Xorg. With the "nvidia" driver I get an failure when I trying to startx which fails. So I open the log file:

nano /var/log/Xorg.0.log

In the log-file was written that my graphic card is "supported through the NVIDIA 340.xx Legacy drivers".

Also you can check your driver on geforce.com:
Search for your driver on geforce.com

If the driver-version ends with 340.xx you need:

pacman -S nvidia-340xx

Xorg worked after I installed another driver

2. You do not need lib32-drivers. I know that because I deleted all of them. Also the problem does not solve by installing all drivers.

3. The libGL.so.1 must be in

/usr/lib/libGL.so.1

Not in

/usr/lib/nvidia/libGL.so.1

I know that, because I get an error try to startx showing me that he could not find libGL.so.1 and then copying the libGL.so.1 in /usr/lib and startx worked with another failure. Also some people having the same issue with Steam:
libGL.so.1 problem with steam
Answer was:

Terion wrote:

This problem on 64-bits systems is caused by /usr/lib being earlier in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH than /usr/lib32. Steam tries the 64-bit libraries and complains, without looking any further.

However copying the libGL.so.1 does not solve the problem...

4. So I found this post:
KDE Forum - plasmashell crash
So I tried out the following:

export DISPLAY:=0
plasmashell

First I get an error which saying that QXcbConnection could not connect to display. But after I startx on one display and changed (with Ctrl + Alt +Fx) to another and tried it again I get an message that there is a problem with OpenGL. So it is important to enable OpenGL support:
To enable OpenGL support, also install mesa-libgl

And that was the solution for me. Instead of using the nvidia-libgl I needed the mesa-libgl and it is no problem to ignore the conflict between these two:

pacman -S mesa-libgl

I just overwrite the .xinitrc by put exec startkde at the end and deleting the other instructions.

So please report if this solves the issue

Last edited by goulashsoup (2015-10-16 17:29:26)

shikongzxz · 2015-10-17 03:29:59

Had just the same problem. Thanks for @goulashsoup, just solved my problem.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-02-07 00:25:46

Cannot start plasma 5

#2 2015-02-07 00:53:06

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#3 2015-02-07 01:25:02

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#4 2015-02-07 01:56:27

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#5 2015-02-07 02:23:18

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#6 2015-02-07 13:42:55

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#7 2015-02-07 15:41:09

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#8 2015-02-07 16:15:24

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#9 2015-02-07 18:37:07

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#10 2015-02-07 18:58:10

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#11 2015-02-07 19:25:33

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#12 2015-02-07 19:51:13

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#13 2015-02-07 21:13:45

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#14 2015-02-08 06:14:51

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#15 2015-02-08 08:59:32

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#16 2015-02-08 09:22:45

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#17 2015-02-08 13:52:57

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#18 2015-02-08 16:06:53

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#19 2015-02-08 16:34:33

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#20 2015-02-08 19:41:52

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#21 2015-02-09 18:15:35

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#22 2015-06-28 06:15:55

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#23 2015-06-30 09:19:29

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#24 2015-10-12 20:07:05

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

#25 2015-10-17 03:29:59

Re: Cannot start plasma 5

Board footer