[SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 05:30:12

Hello everyone, this is my first time both posting to these forums and using Arch, so apologies if this post is missing something or I'm missing something obvious.

I've never setup Linux from scratch before, so it's been a learning experience, but I was doing decently until I hit a brick wall. I'm not 100% sure these are driver issues, but I'm not sure what else they could be. I was expecting some struggling with drivers since I'm on an Nvidia Optimus laptop, but even after disabling Optimus none of these problems are resolved so I'm not sure whether or not that has anything to do with it.

On my actual Arch install, I cannot get any tty to load except for tty1. All of the others just show a flashing underscore forever and never load the login prompt. However, on my live ISO USB that I used to install Arch, I can. This indicates to me that there's a package that's present on the live ISO that isn't on the base install that's making it work, but I have no idea which one it is or how to find out which one it is aside from just installing almost everything from the ISO package list.

I also cannot load into a desktop environment or display manager. I'm trying to use KDE Plasma, but running startx will make plasma load until the point the mouse cursor appears on a black screen, where it will then hang entirely forcing me to completely shut off the machine. Nothing ever loads besides the cursor and there's no point where I can move it. Trying to start sddm though systemctl start sddm.service will blank the screen and make a mouse cursor appear that I can move, but nothing happens after that and I can't load into the greeter.

Naturally, I assumed I had broken something and didn't know how to fix it, so I just reinstalled it from the live USB and tried everything again, which changed absolutely nothing. So far I've spent several hours trying to fix this. I've read stuff from the wiki and I've done web searches and gone through forum posts and such to avoid having to make one myself. Unfortunately, nothing has brought me any closer to solving it other than making me think it's driver related since every similar issue I've found online has been. If anyone has any advice as to how to figure this out, it would be much appreciated!

The only log I managed to find relating to this was /var/log/Xorg.0.log, which I was able to move to an SD card to post on this computer. Here it is at: https://pastebin.com/95i88wpm

I've read over it but I have no idea how to determine what in here is related to my issue.

edit: forgot to clarify, I've tried starting X and changing ttys with and without all of the drivers in the wiki page for Xorg and nothing's changed at all.

EDIT AFTER SOLUTION: the problem was not driver related after all, instead it was seemingly partially a configuration issue but mainly a permissions issue. my / directory was owned by the wrong user somehow, and it was fixed by logging in as root, running "chown root:root /", and then running "chmod 0755 /". Do not do the first command with sudo instead of logging in as root or it will break every command and you will have to change ttys or restart and login as root and then run chmod before you can login as any other user again.

Last edited by queenbiscuit311 (2023-05-18 20:29:49)

seth · 2023-05-18 06:53:24

There's no apparent issue in the xorg log but since this is an nvidia Ampere chip (apaarently after disabling optimus and opting for the nvidia chip only i the BIOS?), you proabaly wanted to install the binary nvidia driver.

If you want me to read your future post, stray in some linebreaks.

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 07:00:03

yeah , definitely could use some line breaks since it's kind of a textwall how i wrote it. I'll make sure to edit it a bit.

I've tried with both the nouveau drivers and the Nvidia proprietary ones, but neither are having any affect. I know they both work on this GPU, so I'm not sure what the issue is. I've also tried with Optimus on with no display out from the Nvidia GPU, so it's just the Intel igpu working, but nothing driver related works there either.

thinking about it, no configuration changes I've tried have done much of anything, actually.

Last edited by queenbiscuit311 (2023-05-18 07:00:28)

seth · 2023-05-18 07:02:56

I'm trying to use KDE Plasma, but running startx will make plasma load until the point the mouse cursor appears on a black screen

Please post your xinitrc.
You can

cat ~/.xinitrc | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

and post the link you get.

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 07:21:59

curl threw an error when i tried that command, but I can just type what it says in the text editor.

my .xinitrc file has the following lines:
export DESKTOP_SESSION=plasma
exec startplasma-x11

I believe I just typed in these lines from the plasma wiki page.

seth · 2023-05-18 07:25:19

Last link below, see the note on what at least to include.

Then try to just run an xterm and startplasma-x11 from there.

Curl error is network related? Do you have network access on the console?

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 07:29:57

I do have network access, it said the url was malformed or something. I'll check the link you're referring me to.

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 07:44:19

Alright so I can start X with an xterm, but the moment X displays anything the entire computer freezes. I can't move the mouse or type anything into the terminal. It seems to render exactly one frame before freezing. It seems that the freezing problem isn't plasma related?

Last edited by queenbiscuit311 (2023-05-18 08:09:53)

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 08:31:49

An update: I saw something on another forum post implying that this issue is group membership/permissions related. Despite my better judgement I ran sudo startx out of curiosity and it starts without freezing. It would appear somethings wrong with the permissions on my user account perhaps? I'm going to see if comparing the groups my user account is in with the ones my user account is in on a linux install with working X will yield anything.

edit: it did not give me anything useful

Last edited by queenbiscuit311 (2023-05-18 08:46:25)

seth · 2023-05-18 13:30:54

Did you fix the xinitrc?
When X11 freezes, can you still ctrl+alt+f2?

Please post your complete system journal for the boot:

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

for the previous one.

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 14:01:02

Did you fix the xinitrc?

As far as I'm aware, I did. I even tried the default xinitrc since that one starts xterm by default, same result.

When X11 freezes, can you still ctrl+alt+f2?

I've tried but the system just doesn't respond to anything, I have to do a force shut off every time.

curl won't let me do anything with the url "0x0.st", gives me the following error even when changing it to https://0x0.st/:

curl: (3) URL using bad/illegal format or missing URL

Here's the output uploaded to pastebin: https://pastebin.com/XiHVDY1C

On first glance there seems to be a few Nvidia driver related errors near the end of the log.

Last edited by queenbiscuit311 (2023-05-18 14:01:54)

Scimmia · 2023-05-18 14:07:30

Did you remove the kms hook from mkinitcpio.conf?

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 14:12:21

I don't think I've changed anything in that file, I'm assuming that's something I should do?

Scimmia · 2023-05-18 14:14:13

If you want to use the nvidia driver, yes. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA#Installation

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 14:19:31

Managed to completely miss this page somehow, let me try this and see if it fixes anything.

seth · 2023-05-18 14:24:28

Rebuilding the initramfs should actually do, the nvidia module fails to load because nouveau is loaded by the initramfs. It will have gotten tere before nvidia-utils blacklisted it.

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 14:35:58

Alright, so yeah that missed step there on my part seemed to be the cause of the crashing. SDDM and Plasma both still won't load anything past a cursor and I can't load another tty to do anything other than CTRL-Alt-Delete, but starting X isn't freezing the entire system and now I can move the Plasma cursor, so it's definitely a start. I'll try to see if it's leaving any logs or anything that I can look through now.

seth · 2023-05-18 14:38:54

Try to run "startplasma-x11" in the xterm.

SDDM and Plasma both still won't load anything past a cursor

What do you mean by sddm? You've been talking about startx so far?

Please post the output of

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

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 14:50:48

I mentioned in the original post that SDDM doesn't work either. I assume none of what I just did would affect that, but I stated the result of loading it just in case it was related or something. Both seem to have the same behavior of never loading past the cursor.

Here is the output of the command you showed:

https://pastebin.com/mN9nMWfT

seth · 2023-05-18 15:23:33

SDDM isn't enabled but you've competitively systemd-networkd.service and dhcpcd.service - disable one of them (probably the latter)
This might also be the cause of your curling issues.

Then post an udpated xrog log and system journal

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 15:30:33

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. systemd-networkd wasn't working so i setup dhcpcd and forgot to disable the other one. I'll do that and see if curl works then post the other logs. I don't have SDDM enabled, I just start it manually to test it because otherwise I have no way to get to the tty when it fails to load.

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 16:49:20

systemd-networkd is disabled now, but curl still wont accept 0x0.st as a valid url.

Here's my xorg log when trying to start plasma with startx: https://pastebin.com/ADd7FTQ2

And here's journalctl again after trying to start plasma with startx: https://pastebin.com/ViEHhNzh

Running ls -a on my user folder does reveal that plasma has indeed made several files in .cache and .config, but not as many as it seems like it should if it was starting properly.

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 17:13:31

Also, forgot to add that if i start plasma from xterm it will show a black screen for a bit and then just close back to the previous environment with xterm and i have to ctrl-c out of the startplasma-x11 command to continue using xterm.

the command returns the following lines:

QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-sarah'
QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-sarah'
QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-sarah'
QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-sarah'
QObject::installEventFilter(): Cannot filter events for objects in a different thread.

After this it just does nothing until a keyboard interrupt. I'm not entirely sure what the last line is referring to.

Last edited by queenbiscuit311 (2023-05-18 17:17:24)

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 17:51:15

Just tried running plasmashell, and while it required me to start a dbus session first it did load into the desktop. I can see the mouse and the wallpaper and interact with the UI. The window manager doesn't seem to be running, likely because I used the plasmashell command instead of the actual command you're supposed to use. I can start konsole though, even though the window is tiny and it starts tweaking out after a bit. Here's a screenshot I took with spectacle: https://i.imgur.com/BGZoit5.png

It would appear that it's definitely capable of loading a DE, but it seems something is specifically stopping it from loading something started with the startplasma-x11 command or when starting sddm that isn't loaded when running plasmashell. Then again I don't know any of that for sure I'm just guessing based on everything I'm seeing.

Last edited by queenbiscuit311 (2023-05-18 17:52:46)

queenbiscuit311 · 2023-05-18 18:00:08

Ran kwin_x11 and the window manager is running now, although it looks a bit scuffed. At least now I can get into plasma even if not properly. There's a lot of other stuff that's not running like pipewire, but this is a start I guess.

Last edited by queenbiscuit311 (2023-05-18 18:02:18)

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#1 2023-05-18 05:30:12

[SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#2 2023-05-18 06:53:24

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#3 2023-05-18 07:00:03

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#4 2023-05-18 07:02:56

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#5 2023-05-18 07:21:59

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#6 2023-05-18 07:25:19

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#7 2023-05-18 07:29:57

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#8 2023-05-18 07:44:19

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#9 2023-05-18 08:31:49

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#10 2023-05-18 13:30:54

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#11 2023-05-18 14:01:02

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#12 2023-05-18 14:07:30

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#13 2023-05-18 14:12:21

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#14 2023-05-18 14:14:13

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#15 2023-05-18 14:19:31

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#16 2023-05-18 14:24:28

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#17 2023-05-18 14:35:58

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#18 2023-05-18 14:38:54

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#19 2023-05-18 14:50:48

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#20 2023-05-18 15:23:33

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#21 2023-05-18 15:30:33

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#22 2023-05-18 16:49:20

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#23 2023-05-18 17:13:31

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#24 2023-05-18 17:51:15

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

#25 2023-05-18 18:00:08

Re: [SOLVED]Having several (seemingly) driver-related issues, cant load DE

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