System not starting gui

biscotty666 · 2022-07-20 14:52:33

My system was locking on boot so I used systemd.unit=multi-user.target to boot to the command line. It freezes when I startx (is this the wrong command to use in Arch?). I can then reboot and check the logs. Unfortunately I cannot post any logs here because I can't access the gui on the problem system. Nothing jumps out at me and the log shows sddm starting without errors. I'm at a loss as to how to proceed. Maybe I'm not looking for the right thing. The only errors I see in the log between sddm starting and the shutdown signal are Network Manager related but they seem benign.

Last edited by biscotty666 (2022-07-20 15:37:48)

ewaller · 2022-07-20 15:01:51

Define freeze.
Are keyboard lights blinking? Does console text remain on the screen? Does the screen go black? Can you change to a different console using Ctrl-Alt-F2 (or F3 through F6)?
Can you share your ~/.xinitrc file?

biscotty666 · 2022-07-20 15:11:15

I cannot copy .xinitrc but it contains three lines starting pipewire, pipewire-pulse and pipewire-media-session. That is all.

I was able to startx without the system hanging. The xlog reports a fatal server error that it cannot open virtual console 1 (Permission denied). That would seem to be the problem, no?

biscotty666 · 2022-07-20 15:15:37

When I startx as root I get command not found errors for xinitrc on the terminal output but I see no errors in the actual xlog.

Last edited by biscotty666 (2022-07-20 15:18:27)

ewaller · 2022-07-20 15:24:54

The .xinitrc file sounds really wrong. How did you create it?
At the least, you should have something like this at the beginning of that file:

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

Somewhere in there you probably should start an Xorg session as well (Something like exec startplasma-x11 ). Are those three lines backgrounded (Do they end with '&') ?

Permission denied

Have you *ever* tried starting Xorg as root?

Edit: You posted while I was posting. Damn. You ran it as root. Go through all of your home directory looking for files owned by root and clean them out.

Last edited by ewaller (2022-07-20 15:26:13)

V1del · 2022-07-20 15:27:26

In the other thread I posted links to be able to post logs without a GUI. use

sudo journalctl -b -1

the -1 is for the previous to your current boot -2 for the one before that and so fort. Post the log of a session that didn't start properly.

e.g.

sudo journalctl -b-1 | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

you'll get a link that you can copy and post here. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_o … n_services as well.

biscotty666 · 2022-07-20 15:40:35

ewaller wrote:

The .xinitrc file sounds really wrong. How did you create it?
At the least, you should have something like this at the beginning of that file:
if [ -d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d ]; then
  for f in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/*; do
    [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
  done
  unset f
fi
[[ -f ~/.Xresources ]] && xrdb -merge -I$HOME ~/.Xresources
Somewhere in there you probably should start an Xorg session as well (Something like exec startplasma-x11 ). Are those three lines backgrounded (Do they end with '&') ?
Permission denied
Have you *ever* tried starting Xorg as root?
Edit: You posted while I was posting. Damn. You ran it as root. Go through all of your home directory looking for files owned by root and clean them out.

I got rid of my .xinitrc now so it should just be using the defaults. I did not create the file myself, I assume it was created by the pipewire install.

Last edited by biscotty666 (2022-07-20 15:50:37)

ewaller · 2022-07-20 15:47:42

Okay, did you install twm, xterm and xclock ? You need them for the default xinitrc.
Did you clean out all the Xorg files in your home directory that are now owned by root?

biscotty666 · 2022-07-20 15:49:58

V1del wrote:

In the other thread I posted links to be able to post logs without a GUI. use
sudo journalctl -b -1
the -1 is for the previous to your current boot -2 for the one before that and so fort. Post the log of a session that didn't start properly.
e.g.
sudo journalctl -b-1 | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st 
you'll get a link that you can copy and post here. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_o … n_services as well.

I get an error from curl that it cannot open/read local data from file/application.

BTW I solved the permissions problem and when I startx as user I get errors in the xlog "no screens found" and just prior to that "Devices detected but none match those in the config file". Prior to that it fails to find modules intel, fbdev, and permission denied opening /dev/dri/card0,

biscotty666 · 2022-07-20 15:54:27

ewaller wrote:

Okay, did you install twm, xterm and xclock ? You need them for the default xinitrc.
Did you clean out all the Xorg files in your home directory that are now owned by root?

I did not explicitly install those three packages but I can try reinstalling them. I assumed pacman -Syu would take care of that. And no user home directory files are owned by root.

Last edited by biscotty666 (2022-07-20 15:55:09)

ewaller · 2022-07-20 16:05:52

biscotty666 wrote:

[And no user home directory files are owned by root.

Humor me. Did you try

find ~ -user root

biscotty666 · 2022-07-20 16:10:37

ewaller wrote:

biscotty666 wrote:
[And no user home directory files are owned by root.
Humor me. Did you try
find ~ -user root

Yep. It only reports a timezone symlink which is owned by root for some reason but I don't see how that could matter.

biscotty666 · 2022-07-20 16:14:10

I'm thinking that the easiest solution at this point is to install from scratch. I usually would have /home on a different partition but I should be good if I copy home to a different disk/partition and do the reinstall. Are there any arch-specific things I should consider if I do this?

seth · 2022-07-20 19:33:54

I'm thinking that the easiest solution at this point is to install from scratch.

To repeat the same mistakes that get you into the same situation?

The only errors I see in the log between sddm starting and the shutdown signal are Network Manager related but they seem benign.

There are no "benign" errors. They might be irrelevant to your situation - or not.

I get an error from curl that it cannot open/read local data from file/application.

Typo/you forgot some quotes or you're not online.
Does

sudo journalctl -b-1

produce some output?
Can you "ping -c1 0x0.st"?
If so, try to upload the journal again.

I did not create the file myself, I assume it was created by the pipewire install.

Probably not.

You've so far not been using xinit but SDDM.
Does booting the multi-user.target and then explicitly "sudo systemctl start sddm" work?
Did you try to configure SDDM to run under wayland, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SDDM#R … er_Wayland ?

Arch Linux

#1 2022-07-20 14:52:33

System not starting gui

#2 2022-07-20 15:01:51

Re: System not starting gui

#3 2022-07-20 15:11:15

Re: System not starting gui

#4 2022-07-20 15:15:37

Re: System not starting gui

#5 2022-07-20 15:24:54

Re: System not starting gui

#6 2022-07-20 15:27:26

Re: System not starting gui

#7 2022-07-20 15:40:35

Re: System not starting gui

#8 2022-07-20 15:47:42

Re: System not starting gui

#9 2022-07-20 15:49:58

Re: System not starting gui

#10 2022-07-20 15:54:27

Re: System not starting gui

#11 2022-07-20 16:05:52

Re: System not starting gui

#12 2022-07-20 16:10:37

Re: System not starting gui

#13 2022-07-20 16:14:10

Re: System not starting gui

#14 2022-07-20 19:33:54

Re: System not starting gui

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