[SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

Freakzz · 2020-12-01 15:20:53

Hello everyone,
as you could probably tell, I'm new to this forum and I just recently upgraded from Manjaro to Arch Linux. However, as a first time, i came across some issues. So after installing KDE (non meta packages), I enabled SDDM (like my friend told me to) and then rebooted. Screen pitch black, as if it was off. For some reason it wouldn't boot so after regenerating the grub config twice, my friend came to the conclusion that It was an SDDM related issue. So he told me to execute

 systemctl set-default graphical.target

and with that I finally booted into KDE. However after getting a theme and shut down my laptop, I came back only to see that It wouldn't boot again, same thing, black screen. I thought it could be my faulty ISO file so I reinstalled arch with an ISO from Germany. Did the same except this time, it wouldnt boot, even after executing the command I referred to earlier, screen black as if my laptop wasn't even on. I installed nvidia packages(which again, my friend told me to get despite me knowing that my laptop has hybrid intel-nvidia graphics). So after rebooting once again, my screen was still black but this time, it was on. I don't know what to do in order to solve this issue. Any help would be appreciated.

Last edited by Freakzz (2021-02-26 21:04:42)

V1del · 2020-12-01 15:53:44

Welcome to the boards

There's very little of actual relevance towards the problem in this post, can you get to a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+F2 or so? If you can and you can log in, post the output of

sudo journalctl -b

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Li … in_clients

The nvidia packages are going to be irrelevant on most default setups with integrated graphics. Just from the symptoms and the fact that it apparently worked once I'd say add i915 to your initramfs: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … _KMS_start

Freakzz · 2020-12-01 16:37:05

So I managed to gather some more information. To tell you everything in order, I uninstalled nvidia and nvidis-utils packages before and tried to install the hybrid prime ones (which are only installable through mhwd. I had issues with my drivers on manjaro and I got help for it this is why I mentioned mhwd) so needless to say, I didn't have graphic drivers for a few minutes. I messaged my friend and he told me to include some more info. I was and am able to access SDDM by starting it manually. So a few mins ago I booted in KDE and the animations were extremely laggy(probably because i didnt have any drivers installed like mentioned previously). So I installed them while on KDE on the terminal and then I rebooted. Again I started SDDM manually and the animations looked fixed. However I couldn't go past the login screen/SDDM. The screen would go black after logging in through the SDDM which could be related to my graphics yet again. After all of that I ran the command you told me to run. Here's the out put http://ix.io/2GaD

V1del · 2020-12-01 17:09:03

Did you install the hybrid prime package from a Manjaro install? Don't do that. Remove that and any configuration it did and follow any of the options mentioned here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA_Optimus

FWIW if you've done any other configuration of xorg, post the relevant configuration files.

Freakzz · 2020-12-01 18:12:30

V1del wrote:

Did you install the hybrid prime package from a Manjaro install? Don't do that. Remove that and any configuration it did and follow any of the options mentioned here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA_Optimus
FWIW if you've done any other configuration of xorg, post the relevant configuration files.

There haven't been any edits in xorg configuration files. No I didn't install the same driver as I did on Manjaro. Even If I wanted to I couldn't because to do that I'd need mhwd. I'm now going to check the wiki you just sent me

V1del · 2020-12-01 18:27:16

if you didn't do anything and you have that error you should definitely do at least the early KMS initialisation with i915

Freakzz · 2020-12-01 18:31:35

V1del wrote:

if you didn't do anything and you have that error you should definitely do at least the early KMS initialisation with i915

How's that done? Also since I'm using hybrid prime graphics, am I able to install any switchable graphics (software?) or are they all for specific graphics cards

V1del · 2020-12-01 20:49:48

read the link in my first post. How you are going to make use of your switchable graphics depends on how you want to set it up. You usually only install one thing and set that up properly. If it's a newish system I'd reccommend you just use the official nvidia-prime method by installing nvidia-prime and using prime-run to launch software you intend to run on the nvidia card.

Freakzz · 2020-12-02 14:22:46

V1del wrote:

read the link in my first post. How you are going to make use of your switchable graphics depends on how you want to set it up. You usually only install one thing and set that up properly. If it's a newish system I'd reccommend you just use the official nvidia-prime method by installing nvidia-prime and using prime-run to launch software you intend to run on the nvidia card.

The solution you provided didn't work. I added i915 as a module and even tried adding intel_agp. Neither worked

Lone_Wolf · 2020-12-02 14:49:20

please boot with systemd.unit=multi-user.target as kernel parameter
login to console as root and get xorg log from previous start.
Check /var/log/ and /home/your-normal-user/.local/share/xorg/ folders for the correct log.

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2020-12-02 14:50:10)

Freakzz · 2020-12-02 15:54:22

Lone_Wolf wrote:

please boot with systemd.unit=multi-user.target as kernel parameter
login to console as root and get xorg log from previous start.
Check /var/log/ and

http://ix.io/2GfY
http://ix.io/2Gg1
Since there were two files with the name xorg. Xorg.0.log and Xorg.1.log and there was another log but it was .old as for the other path, there weren't any directories/files with the name xorg in .local/share/

Regarding booting with systemd..... how do I do that? Asking so I don't break it any further

Last edited by Freakzz (2020-12-03 15:40:02)

Freakzz · 2020-12-03 16:39:35

I've decided to stop trying to fix this and came to the decision of uninstalling Arch. I've grown sick and tired of trying to fix this. Thanks for the support either way.

Lone_Wolf · 2020-12-04 14:06:14

Regarding booting with systemd..... how do I do that? Asking so I don't break it any further

You add such kernel parmeters to the line that starts the kernel in your bootloader configuration.

Good luck, try archlinux again sometime.

Freakzz · 2020-12-04 16:03:27

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Regarding booting with systemd..... how do I do that? Asking so I don't break it any further
You add such kernel parmeters to the line that starts the kernel in your bootloader configuration.
Good luck, try archlinux again sometime.

There us no text "kernel" anywhere in the boot loader as u can see here: https://ibb.co/m04wwwM

As for uninstalling arch, I have decided to keep it and install Awesome instead of KDE. Unless I'm able to fix KDE of course

V1del · 2020-12-04 16:12:23

You currently have a broken graphics driver setup. Switching to Awesome is just sweeping that fact under a rug, you will inevitably run into issues as soon as you try do something remotely more complex than literally just running awesome wm.

However if you actually get that far, post your

glxinfo -B #Needs mesa-demos
sudo journalctl -b

as well as a xorg.log: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg#General

See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Li … in_clients for how to post proper outputs from a terminal.

Last edited by V1del (2020-12-04 16:17:50)

Freakzz · 2020-12-04 16:15:22

V1del wrote:

You currently have a broken graphics driver setup. Switching to Awesome is just sweeping that fact under a rug, you will inevitably run into issues as soon as you try do something remotely more complex than literally just running awesome wm.
However if you actually get that far, post your
glxinfo -B #Needs mesa-demos
sudo journalctl -b
as well as a xorg.log: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg#General
See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Li … in_clients for how to post proper outputs from a terminal.

I don't know if this has to do anything with my graphics or my current issues, but the reason I switched to Arch is because I broke my compositor on Manjaro and instead of fixing it I decided to move onto another distro. Although I dont think jts related to my current issues I'll try out your tips in a few hours

Lone_Wolf · 2020-12-04 17:12:50

Looks like you misunderstood almost completely what I meant.
See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kernel_parameters for more info including examples for several bootloaders.

Freakzz · 2020-12-05 11:07:43

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Looks like you misunderstood almost completely what I meant.
See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kernel_parameters for more info including examples for several bootloaders.

I'm sorry. As you can probably tell English isn't my primary language. So am I supposed to change my bootloader config to look like one of the examples on the Wiki? Or is there something else I'm still not getting.

Lone_Wolf · 2020-12-06 15:15:31

Ok, I will try to be more clear . (english is also not my native language)

You do need to change your bootloader config , the wiki examples help to find where the change should be made and how it looks.

Which bootloader are you using ?

Freakzz · 2020-12-06 16:18:17

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Ok, I will try to be more clear . (english is also not my native language)
You do need to change your bootloader config , the wiki examples help to find where the change should be made and how it looks.
Which bootloader are you using ?

GRUB (Non Legacy)

Last edited by Freakzz (2020-12-06 17:01:45)

Lone_Wolf · 2020-12-06 17:37:30

Ok, press e when you see the grub menu .

add systemd.unit=multi-user.target to the end of the line that starts with linux
press CTRL + x to boot one-time using that parameter .

This should give you a console screen.
-login as root
- verify if you have xorg-xinit , xorg-twm, xorg-xclock and twm installed. if not, install them.
- also check if mesa-demos is installed.
- login as user
- configure ~/.xinitrc [2]
- run startx
- if you see 3 terminal windows, a clock and a mouse pointer your X setup is functional
- run glxinfo -B from one of the terminals and post it ,
see pastebin clients for methods to get stuff on the internet from commandline.
- to get out of the minimal X, execute exit in the top left terminal window.

In case you don't see the 3 terminal windows + clock and screen stays blank, swtich to another tty with CTRL +Fn (function key n)
and post xorg log and lspci -k .

Freakzz · 2020-12-06 21:44:32

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Ok, press e when you see the grub menu .
add systemd.unit=multi-user.target to the end of the line that starts with linux
press CTRL + x to boot one-time using that parameter .
This should give you a console screen.
-login as root
- verify if you have xorg-xinit , xorg-twm, xorg-xclock and twm installed. if not, install them.
- also check if mesa-demos is installed.
- login as user
- configure ~/.xinitrc [2]
- run startx
- if you see 3 terminal windows, a clock and a mouse pointer your X setup is functional
- run glxinfo -B from one of the terminals and post it ,
see pastebin clients for methods to get stuff on the internet from commandline.
- to get out of the minimal X, execute exit in the top left terminal window.
In case you don't see the 3 terminal windows + clock and screen stays blank, swtich to another tty with CTRL +Fn (function key n)
and post xorg log and lspci -k .

I apologise in advance. This issue has been a misunderstanding and its a mistake from my part. I could start SDDM and X manually. My friend helped me and I can now boot into KDE without any issues. I'll edit this message tomorrow to add in the process. Thanks!

Arch Linux

#1 2020-12-01 15:20:53

[SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#2 2020-12-01 15:53:44

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#3 2020-12-01 16:37:05

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#4 2020-12-01 17:09:03

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#5 2020-12-01 18:12:30

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#6 2020-12-01 18:27:16

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#7 2020-12-01 18:31:35

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#8 2020-12-01 20:49:48

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#9 2020-12-02 14:22:46

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#10 2020-12-02 14:49:20

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#11 2020-12-02 15:54:22

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#12 2020-12-03 16:39:35

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#13 2020-12-04 14:06:14

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#14 2020-12-04 16:03:27

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#15 2020-12-04 16:12:23

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#16 2020-12-04 16:15:22

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#17 2020-12-04 17:12:50

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#18 2020-12-05 11:07:43

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#19 2020-12-06 15:15:31

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#20 2020-12-06 16:18:17

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#21 2020-12-06 17:37:30

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

#22 2020-12-06 21:44:32

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into KDE, SDDM Crashes(?)

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