Arch Linux

jgdempsey

Member

Registered: 2023-04-27

Posts: 6

Nothing being displayed on desktop after logging in to XFCE session

Hi All,
I'm having an issue where only the wallpaper (and mousepointer) are displayed after logging into XFCE.  I have tried deleting the contents of the .cache and .config folders, but it only seemed to work once after the initial reboot, and now even that doesn't help.  Lightdm seems to be running according to the output of systemctl status lightdm below, but not sure if the startup messages are related or not.

● lightdm.service - Light Display Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2023-04-28 06:45:02 EDT; 1h 37min ago
       Docs: man:lightdm(1)
   Main PID: 499 (lightdm)
      Tasks: 6 (limit: 4373)
     Memory: 151.9M
        CPU: 3.136s
     CGroup: /system.slice/lightdm.service
             ├─499 /usr/bin/lightdm
             └─552 /usr/lib/Xorg :0 -seat seat0 -auth /run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch

Apr 28 06:45:02 john-macbookpro51 systemd[1]: Starting Light Display Manager...
Apr 28 06:45:02 john-macbookpro51 systemd[1]: Started Light Display Manager.
Apr 28 06:45:07 john-macbookpro51 lightdm[569]: pam_unix(lightdm-greeter:session): session opened for user lightdm(uid=969) by (uid=0)
Apr 28 06:45:08 john-macbookpro51 lightdm[670]: pam_systemd_home(lightdm:auth): systemd-homed is not available: Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Apr 28 06:45:21 john-macbookpro51 lightdm[670]: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session opened for user johnd(uid=1000) by (uid=0)
Apr 28 06:45:21 john-macbookpro51 lightdm[670]: Error opening audit socket: Protocol not supported

Any assistance would be appreciated.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,292

Re: Nothing being displayed on desktop after logging in to XFCE session

Post your xorg log and

sudo journalctl -b

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_o … n_services

jgdempsey

Member

Registered: 2023-04-27

Posts: 6

Re: Nothing being displayed on desktop after logging in to XFCE session

Thanks!
Xorg.0.log is at http://0x0.st/HKGE.txt

journal is at http://0x0.st/HKGI.txt

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,292

Re: Nothing being displayed on desktop after logging in to XFCE session

I'm counting three conflicting networking services at the minimum which can lead to all sorts of trouble,  your are using noveau.noaccel? why? Get rid of the networking conflicts, since this is an old realtek chip chances that wpa_supplicant will work better are higher, disable and remove iwd and disable systemd-networkd to keep only NetworkManager. Make sure NetworkManager is the only network related thing listed in the output of

find /etc/systemd -type l -exec test -f {} \; -print | awk -F'/' '{ printf ("%-40s | %s\n", $(NF-0), $(NF-1)) }' | sort -f

jgdempsey

Member

Registered: 2023-04-27

Posts: 6

Re: Nothing being displayed on desktop after logging in to XFCE session

Noveau-noaccel must have gotten installed automatically, but it's been a while so I'm not sure.    I have removed iwd and disabled systemd-networkd. Here's the output of the command:

bluetooth.service                        | bluetooth.target.wants
choose-mirror.service                    | multi-user.target.wants
cloud-config.service                     | cloud-init.target.wants
cloud-final.service                      | cloud-init.target.wants
cloud-init-local.service                 | cloud-init.target.wants
cloud-init.service                       | cloud-init.target.wants
cups.path                                | multi-user.target.wants
cups.service                             | printer.target.wants
cups.socket                              | sockets.target.wants
dbus-org.bluez.service                   | system
dbus-org.freedesktop.ModemManager1.service | system
dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service | system
dbus-org.freedesktop.resolve1.service    | system
default.target                           | system
display-manager.service                  | system
gcr-ssh-agent.socket                     | sockets.target.wants
getty@tty1.service                       | getty.target.wants
livecd-alsa-unmuter.service              | sound.target.wants
livecd-talk.service                      | multi-user.target.wants
lm_sensors.service                       | multi-user.target.wants
mbpfan.service                           | sysinit.target.wants
ModemManager.service                     | multi-user.target.wants
NetworkManager.service                   | multi-user.target.wants
NetworkManager-wait-online.service       | network-online.target.wants
p11-kit-server.socket                    | sockets.target.wants
pacman-init.service                      | multi-user.target.wants
pulseaudio.socket                        | sockets.target.wants
reflector.service                        | multi-user.target.wants
remote-fs.target                         | multi-user.target.wants
sshd.service                             | multi-user.target.wants
systemd-resolved.service                 | multi-user.target.wants
vboxservice.service                      | multi-user.target.wants
xdg-user-dirs-update.service             | default.target.wants

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,292

Re: Nothing being displayed on desktop after logging in to XFCE session

This isn't an actual Arch install is it? noveau.noaccel is a kernel parameter that is currently set, if you don't know how it got there then because your live installer carried over it's  defaults unconditionally. Remove that kernel parameter and if it still doesn't work, then this is the reason we don't support third party installers. Ask the installer author for help or install Arch Linux with the supported installation method:  https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide

jgdempsey

Member

Registered: 2023-04-27

Posts: 6

Re: Nothing being displayed on desktop after logging in to XFCE session

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I didn't use a different installer, but did follow a couple of online blogs about installing Arch on this machine (a 2008 MacBook Pro 15, I know ancient, but the hardware still works..).   I'll remove the noveau.noaccel parameter and see if that helps.

jgdempsey

Member

Registered: 2023-04-27

Posts: 6

Re: Nothing being displayed on desktop after logging in to XFCE session

I may have gone down the path of nouveau due to the recommendation in 1.1 on this page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA … ed_drivers but according to the Nvidia site  the 340 driver should support my video hardware, so I will give that a try.