[SOLVED] New sway is blank and unresponsive

SoftwareEngineer · 2024-08-20 07:30:26

I'm new to Arch and sway (though I'm a Linux veteran).

I have this all running with no problem on my pi5 with aarch, but it's so good I've decided to run it now on my intel laptop. So, yesterday, I slapped in a new nvme drive and got to work. Arch x86 is installed, with a working network.

But, when I start sway it shows a grey screen with a 1 in the top left and the date and time in the top right. I have a dual screen configured so I can see a 2 on the second screen. The whole thing is then almost completely unresponsive, and I have to cycle the machine power. The keyboard elicits almost no response, but windows+1 or 2 does change the number that's highlighted.

How do I proceed to diagnose this?

Last edited by SoftwareEngineer (2024-08-21 13:30:14)

V1del · 2024-08-20 07:41:56

Can you switch VT? (Ctrl+Alt+F2..F3 or so?), post

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

if you can't, enable https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Keyboa … el_(SysRq) and check whether you can reboot safely with the REISUB sequence instead of powercycling and upon reboot into a terminal session post

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

instead,

SoftwareEngineer · 2024-08-20 08:01:07

Switching to vt works of course, and I can kill sway that way too. Interestingly, the error that causes complains that it cannot start xwayland because it can't find the binary, but pacman reports that wayland is installed and up to date.

http://0x0.st/XJOz.txt

I'm using this forum on my phone until I get a browser running (I've never been good at lynx), so sorry for any typos.

V1del · 2024-08-20 09:08:10

xwayland would be in the xorg-xwayland package. There's also a nvidia Pascal GPU getting driven by nouveau which might lead to issues, though there's no direct indication of that in the log

SoftwareEngineer · 2024-08-20 12:04:56

Yeah, the machine also has an old Nvidia GPU installed but I never use it and haven't installed the drivers for it.

Any clues on how to proceed?

positronik · 2024-08-20 14:08:01

I suppose you already installed xorg-xwayland as suggested, right?

SoftwareEngineer · 2024-08-21 13:21:28

I've largely solved most of the issues I was having by wiping the whole drive and starting again. It all worked the second time through. Sorry I can't offer much insight into what the root cause was, but starting again and making sure that you follow the instructions does seem to be a successful approach So, as usual, it seems it was just user error.

In fact, I'm now writing this reply in a firefox browser all cuddled up nicely against my terminal on my laptop screen, while my big monitor is running VIM (that's normal vim, but on a 42" 4k monitor). And magically, my aging xps is fast and useful again.

Now all I have left to do work out how to mark this thread as solved

Thanks for the help.

Trilby · 2024-08-21 13:24:47

SoftwareEngineer wrote:

Now all I have left to do work out how to mark this thread as solved

That is indeed not that clear: click the "edit" link on your first post in the thread and you will get the option to edit the title. Then just prepend "[SOLVED]" to the title.

SoftwareEngineer · 2024-08-21 13:30:48

Got it, thanks

Arch Linux

#1 2024-08-20 07:30:26

[SOLVED] New sway is blank and unresponsive

#2 2024-08-20 07:41:56

Re: [SOLVED] New sway is blank and unresponsive

#3 2024-08-20 08:01:07

Re: [SOLVED] New sway is blank and unresponsive

#4 2024-08-20 09:08:10

Re: [SOLVED] New sway is blank and unresponsive

#5 2024-08-20 12:04:56

Re: [SOLVED] New sway is blank and unresponsive

#6 2024-08-20 14:08:01

Re: [SOLVED] New sway is blank and unresponsive

#7 2024-08-21 13:21:28

Re: [SOLVED] New sway is blank and unresponsive

#8 2024-08-21 13:24:47

Re: [SOLVED] New sway is blank and unresponsive

#9 2024-08-21 13:30:48

Re: [SOLVED] New sway is blank and unresponsive

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