Should I reinstall Arch?

cryptearth · Yesterday 06:13:46

In reference to https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=299721 I noticed that my current install from October 2022 start to get some "it's an old windows install"-ish vibes: As I keep dragging along old versions of dependencies (although I try to clean them regular) as well as system-wide default-configs some applications started to develope a "that doesn't seem to be right" kind of feeling, most noticeable the ICAClient for Citrix.
My first idea "user specific configs" was ruled out as the same issues still persist even on a new user profile. So it seems the issue is caused by something system wide. For fun I setup a VM, did a fresh install and the issue was gone. I haven't tried to do a clean install bare metal and mount my existing /home yet, but given the issue was not present on a clean install in a vm leads me to they either caused by some old stuff or its config I keep dragging along or maybe even something hardware related so even a new bare metal install won't fix it.
Point is: Although I myself see it's to be the simplest solution "just throw it away and start from scratch" like the "windows sledgehammer method" I question if this is really necessary on Arch or are there better ways to somewhat "clean" the current install from old stuff?
As for foreign packages there aren't many

amd-vulkan-prefixes 2-1
heroic-games-launcher-bin 2.17.2-1
icaclient 25.05.0.44-1
lib32-libva-vdpau-driver 0.7.4-8
libva-vdpau-driver 0.7.4-7
minecraft-launcher 1:2.1.3-3
obs-vaapi 0.4.2-1
protontricks 1.12.1-1
protonup-qt 2.12.0-1
python-inputs 0.5-4
python-libusb-package 1.0.26.2-1
python-steam 1.6.1-1
python-vdf 4.0-2
steamcmd latest-5
vkd3d-proton-bin 2.14.1-1
wol-systemd 20240304-1
yay 12.5.0-1
zfs-linux 2.3.3_6.15.3.arch1.1-1
zfs-utils 2.3.3-1

The rest is from official repos and up-to-date.
As the install is from before KDE6 was released there're also still some KDE5 packages I'm unable to remove because they would break dependencies for even some simple stuff like VLC - so I wonder even if I start from scratch installing VLC on a new system would still pull in all this old stuff because it depends on it.
I'm a bit puzzled - some users here run thier systems for over a decade and I can only guess how bloated thier systems might be - on the other hand I see that even a "just 2 1/2 year old system" already starts to show issues I only know back from my windows days when doing a fresh install at least once a year was pretty much a must-do.

Anyway - feel free to ask and reply - in the meantime I'll try to get some space on my boot drive do to a clean install and see if the issues persist.

seth · Yesterday 06:46:20

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman … _(orphans)

Typically re-installation achieves jack shit, because dependencies will remain the same and files are just lying on the disk and then the same files will be lying on the disk. pacman (no packaging system, appsnapflatdockimage aside, is fucked up in a way the windows update service is)
As for isolated tools misbehaving, I'd simply test them on a fresh user account to see whether it's your users configuration (because then even if you re-install, if you keep your $HOME you'll also keep your problems)
VLC still depends on Qt5, but KDE related deps (kwallet) seem to be strictly optional?

users here run thier systems for over a decade and I can only guess how bloated thier systems might be

Ignoring several TB of stale porn: "not"
The only real "problem" is to clean up undesired config files and caches etc. programs you no longer use might have created in your $HOME - but again: those are then just a bunch of tiny files you're never opening.

Lone_Wolf · Yesterday 09:19:22

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System … filesystem may also be helpful.

cryptearth · Yesterday 15:14:32

Thanks for the replies, but none were able to fix the Citrix issue in particular.
As mentioned: I already tried a fresh user account but the issue persists - so if it's caused by some config it's by a system wide config - not a local user one.

pacman -Qdt currently doesn't return anything so I have at least no non-explicit orphan depencies. I also tried to slim down the system by removing packages I haven't installed on purpose but which came along. Some were held by meta-only depencies like meta packages or package groups and easy to remove.

I also don't seem to have any orphan config or not-yet-checked pacnew.

Guess the only real test would be to just do a clean install with existing /home and check wether the issue still persists.

Million Dollar question: If the issue is cleared on the new system with existing /home how do I figure out what's causing the issue on the current system?

Whoracle · Yesterday 15:23:04

cryptearth wrote:

Million Dollar question: If the issue is cleared on the new system with existing /home how do I figure out what's causing the issue on the current system?

By creating another fresh user, copying your "broken" home over, chmod'ing it to the new user, and see if the issue crops up again.
If yes: strace and see which files get used, and checking those for permissions and content.
If no: compare installed packages and versions, go from there.

seth · Yesterday 16:01:24

If we're focussing on some citrix issue specifically, maybe elaborate on its nature.
If it's not tied to your $HOME and works in a VM, you might easily face a problem that's related to some HW specifics (graphics driver issue) - or maybe the client doesn't like zfs

cryptearth · Yesterday 16:14:27

I'll give a clean install on a different drive a try - could very well be something hardware or driver related
unfortunatly I can't narrow down a specific time window as I just can't remember when was the last time it worked and can only roughly estimate when it broke - so it could be just some minor patches but also some major updates of any of kernel, mesa, icaclient and others

as for zfs: unlikely as I tried it in the same VM I use to build and test zfs - but I will not install it just for the sake of testing and ruling it out

Last edited by cryptearth (Yesterday 16:14:50)

seth · Yesterday 16:17:20

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855
*how* does it not work?

cryptearth · Yesterday 19:32:38

due to how the citrix client works I'm not able to share actual screenshots - so the following mockup has to suffice
I have a three monitor setup - stretching the client window accross all three screens and then switch to full screens sets up the session with three virtual screens - so far so good
but: instead of having each virtual display shown on each screen I see all three screens in a thin stripe - somewhat like this:

+------------------------------------------------------------------++------------------------------------------------------------------++------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                  ||                                                                  ||                                                                  |
|                        PHYSICAL SCREEN 1                         ||                        PHYSICAL SCREEN 2                         ||                        PHYSICAL SCREEN 3                         |
|                                                                  ||                                                                  ||                                                                  |
|+--------------------++--------------------++--------------------+||+--------------------++--------------------++--------------------+||+--------------------++--------------------++--------------------+|
||                    ||                    ||                    ||||                    ||                    ||                    ||||                    ||                    ||                    ||
||    VIRTUAL         ||    VIRTUAL         ||    VIRTUAL         ||||    VIRTUAL         ||    VIRTUAL         ||    VIRTUAL         ||||    VIRTUAL         ||    VIRTUAL         ||    VIRTUAL         ||
||    SCREEN 1        ||    SCREEN 2        ||    SCREEN 3        ||||    SCREEN 1        ||    SCREEN 2        ||    SCREEN 3        ||||    SCREEN 1        ||    SCREEN 2        ||    SCREEN 3        ||
||                    ||                    ||                    ||||                    ||                    ||                    ||||                    ||                    ||                    ||
||                    ||                    ||                    ||||                    ||                    ||                    ||||                    ||                    ||                    ||
|+--------------------++--------------------++--------------------+||+--------------------++--------------------++--------------------+||+--------------------++--------------------++--------------------+|
|                                                                  ||                                                                  ||                                                                  |
|                                                                  ||                                                                  ||                                                                  |
|                                                                  ||                                                                  ||                                                                  |
+------------------------------------------------------------------++------------------------------------------------------------------++------------------------------------------------------------------+

fun fact: the mouse gets translated correctly - so if I want to click the start menu button in the lower left corner I have to move my mouse not to that position at the virtual screen location but to the bottom of the physical screen while the display is in this weird cropped status
if I span only two screens the issue is pretty much the same but with two virtual screens "mirrored" across two physical screens while the 3rd screen is either blanked or just shows my regular desktop (according to our IT guys when citrix is in full screen it's meant to blank any not occupied additional screens)
I also tried to not go full screen but only maximized window - but this messes with the virtual desktop as it will get stretched to a virtual triple-wide screen as if I had a (3x16):9 ultra-wide monitor (some of our IT guys have 32:9 double-wide screens on which it works as intented)

again: I created a new user - issue persists - so next option: clean install with only base, plasma and ICAClient (+depencies) with new /home - and if this works mounting existing /home
question remains: how to troubleshoot if it works on new system with existing /home - which would rule out anything /home related

gonna do the clean install now - report back in about an hour or so

cryptearth · Yesterday 20:57:14

so here's the result:
- clean system, new user: no issue
- clean system, existing /home: no issue
- old system, clean user: issue as above
- old system, main account (which just worked on the new system): issue as above
so from this I can rule out:
- it's not an issue with my existing /home
- it's not an issue with my hardware or anything driver related (both standard kernel 6.15.3)
- it's not an issue with plasma6 itself, but maybe with some old system config
- it could be any other system wide config in any way related to the graphical system
- on my old system the issue also occurs when starting an X11 session - same as for wayland
- ZFS doesn't matter
as a side note I also noticed slight improvements in the few games I currently play - most noteworthy is satisfactory: when I join my server it takes a few seconds from click on the button for the game to actual start loading - on the clean install it was instant (yes, very minor but still a detail noteworthy because it seems not the game but some external factor causing this different behaviour)

so overall a clean install does improve things overall no matter if I bring along my existing /home
and although it would be only a few minutes to reinstall the few packages I have installed (I have a rather slim system) I rather would preserve my current install but rather fix what's "wrong"(/different) to fix those issues I encounter

sure - I'm still in favor of the windows sledgehammer method I'm used to for the past two decades - and looking over at my servers how often a minor distribution upgrade (official support since suse 10) failed and required to setuo from scratch anyway I guess it's the best option anyway - but just for the sake of the spirit of linux and in respect to others not have setup a new system in 10 years - where to even start?

seth · Yesterday 21:16:38

As the install is from before KDE6 was released there're also still some KDE5 packages

https://archlinux.org/news/plasma-640-w … re-on-x11/ ?

Edit:, F5

- on my old system the issue also occurs when starting an X11 session - same as for wayland

"nope"

Still, do you have an X11 log from both systems (assuming that citrix will run on xwayland anyway)

Last edited by seth (Yesterday 21:20:49)

cryptearth · Today 06:09:05

old system: http://0x0.st/8lP6.txt
new install: http://0x0.st/8lPI.txt
both are wayland sessions
the only difference I can see is that my regular install has the locale and keyboard layout properly set while the clean install lacks it - but otherwise I didn't noticed anything different (except for maybe some of the order of the detected devices due to the nature of usb)

Last edited by cryptearth (Today 06:13:25)

seth · Today 06:30:11

Also all three are attached to the same GPU and randr loads (and not eg. xinerama) in both cases.

printenv

You might have setup a global environment variable to steer toolkits between wayland and X11?

I also see no monitor config, ie. w/o randr runtime intervention they'll operated as clones (pretty much what you see)
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Waylan … plications - make sure citrix actually uses xrandr and then compare "xrandr -q" about how the outputs are actually laid out on xwayland.
In doubt help yourself out w/ an X11 config to arrange the outputs: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Multih … _xorg.conf

cryptearth · Today 14:35:58

physical connection: "dumb" passive DP-to-DVI cables
as for monitor config: since I setup the system back in 2022 I configured the layout via kde settings only once to match the physical layout
fun fact: the clean install has correctly detected the physical layout without any manual config - could be due to by coincidence I have connected my display in exact the right order to just tge right ports
I also can't recall to have ever actively started an X11 session - even back then the first session I started after SDDM came up was a wayland session - so I'm unaware about any variable or config to mannual setup my layout (I don't know what config the kde system settings might have set but if any it doesn't seem to reflect in the log)
also my screens don't appear mirrored - it's only what citrix displays - and it also only affects the output - the input, e.g. mouse, is tracked correctly accross the screens

as for printenv: this will have to wait for later - today is a department event in my company which will go for at last 10pm - with my alarm will go off at 5am ... I'm so screwed

seth · Today 15:35:21

the clean install has correctly detected the physical layout without any manual config

Ftr, that's not possible. The monitors do not hint gps data to the system or so… you'll have picked this up from your old $HOME, somehow.

Assuming citrix runs on xwayland (please check) post the "xrandr -q" output and attempt to configure the monitors via xorg configlet.
There's also https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE#Un … lution_set - no idea whether that plays into your situation.

And then there's oc a chance that citrix itself is somehow misconfigured…

Arch Linux

#1 Yesterday 06:13:46

Should I reinstall Arch?

#2 Yesterday 06:46:20

Re: Should I reinstall Arch?

#3 Yesterday 09:19:22

Re: Should I reinstall Arch?

#4 Yesterday 15:14:32

Re: Should I reinstall Arch?

#5 Yesterday 15:23:04

Re: Should I reinstall Arch?

#6 Yesterday 16:01:24

Re: Should I reinstall Arch?

#7 Yesterday 16:14:27

Re: Should I reinstall Arch?

#8 Yesterday 16:17:20

Re: Should I reinstall Arch?

#9 Yesterday 19:32:38

Re: Should I reinstall Arch?

#10 Yesterday 20:57:14

Re: Should I reinstall Arch?

#11 Yesterday 21:16:38

Re: Should I reinstall Arch?

#12 Today 06:09:05

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#13 Today 06:30:11

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#14 Today 14:35:58

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#15 Today 15:35:21

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