15.1-leap gui got killed by xterm

Hello all,

I am on a Dell server, Opensuse 15.1 Leap.

Got fed up withxterm (editor) and decided to uninstall it for a different editor.Jumped into yast, brought xterm up and marked it to be uninstalled.Yast complained and took me to the conflict page which I ignored anddid not even bother to look at what module it would conflict with(guess I must have been really mad at xterm or the devil took over me;) Gave yast the go ahead to uninstall xterm and boom! the yastscreen went black and when it came back on a couple of seconds afterthat I found myself on the kernel page command line. That’s how Ikilled my gui. And I have not been able to figure out how to get itback. The server is still stable, I can still access yast to do a lotof things that needed done and the command line works but the serverwill always boot/reboot to the kernel command line. I miss the gui somuch I can’t settle for just the command line. It is obvious that Ibroke something(gui) while uninstalling xterm. I could not reinstall theconflicted module (because I didn’t look at it) I have reinstalledxterm but did not get the gui back. I do not know the modules thatLeap uses for gui but systemd-ui is uninstalled now (according toyast).

What have I broken? Does systemd-ui or some other modules needed to be reinstalled?

Will appreciate your help. Thanks.

Hello and welcome here.

Maybe we should sort out a few things so that all understand what you say.

E.g. you seem to think that xterm is an editor. It is definitely not. It is a terminal (a good old fashioned one of the TTY or VT type) emulator. So what do you mean, the ztrem program or someting else?

You talk about a GUI (and yes xterm runs inside a GUI), but which one, KDE, Gnome …?

You talk about a “kernel command line”. That is not something that exists AFAIK, but you probably mean that you get a terminal/GUI login instead of the GUI login. BTW, such a terminal login is also a terminal emulator, like xterm, but then on direct on the screen without GUI and working as the system’s console.

You have broken package dependencies.

You can try, “zypper verify” and “rpm --verify --all” to resolve the error.

Strange, I was able to uninstall and reinstall xterm with no problems, even invoking the ncurses yast from xterm itself!
We need more info to reproduce, as @hcvv pointed out.

Thanks for welcoming me and thanks for your reply.

Totally agree with you. It’s a terminal/file manager/text editor etc. Didn’t do justice to it by calling it an editor.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I obviously broke something when I uninstalled it. I’d just like to know what I broke that what need to be installed or reconfigured.

I am talking about the normal gui login page that you get booted into.

And, yes, you’re correct, I was talking about the terminal/GUI login. I referred to it as “kernel command line” because I was trying to distinguish it for you from a terminal that was opened from inside the system’s GUI.

Hope my story is clearer now and thus how you could help me get the gui back.

Many thanks.

[/QUOTE]

Yes, I also can not imagine that just a removal of xterm can result in what the OP describes. That is why I try to find out more about whta was realy done on the system. But even before that we should try to use the same technical language :(.

Ok. Wish I have your machine now. I guess something went wrong with mine. Wish I could tell you.

What more information do you need to reproduce it? will do my best to supply it.

Thanks

It is a terminal emulator. It is NOT an editor or a file manager or anything else. It is a terminal emulator.

You mean that you have in fact no idea what you did? You probably de-installed some packages withou having an idea which ones?

How can we know? But we will try. :slight_smile:

I do not know what you mean with “a normal GUI” What is normal to you mau be abnormal to others. What did you have: KDE, Gnome, other???

That’s what I believed must have happened too.

Will run both commands and then dive into zypper.log to see what’s up there.

Thank you.

Issuing:

cat /var/log/zypp/history

will show you the last few actions you did, and if you cannot scroll back enough maybe the following might help you:

less /var/log/zypp/history

hint: hit “G” (capital G) to go to the end of file, then navigate with arrows.
Posting those few last lines might help us understand what really happened.

Note GUI’s run on top of terminals

And why remove xterm in the first place just don’t use it. Not knowing exactly what else you removed makes things difficult to troubleshoot

I’m not an expert but at least try and believe that I know what I did when and just before the screen went black. That much is certain.

I did de-installed something wrong obviously. Most likely dependants on xterm that affects the gui.

I think that I have Gnome (is there a way to find out?) I remembered trying to make a choice (KDE or Gnome) at installation because I still have an installation running on opensuse 11.1 using KDE and wanted to choose Gnome this time for a change.

Thanks.

“xterm” ain’t an editor – it’s a CLI terminal …


 > rpm --query --whatrequires xterm xterm-bin
no package requires xterm
xdg-menu-0.2-lp151.2.1.noarch
xinit-1.4.0-lp151.3.1.x86_64
xterm-330-lp151.3.3.x86_64
xdm-1.1.11-lp151.13.2.x86_64
icewm-1.4.2-lp151.8.6.1.x86_64
 > rpm --query --whatrecommends xterm xterm-bin
patterns-base-x11-20171206-lp151.29.1.x86_64
no package recommends xterm-bin
 > rpm --query --whatsuggests xterm xterm-bin
no package suggests xterm
no package suggests xterm-bin
dcu@eck001:..Users/dcu> 

It looks as if, you removed the following:

  1. The pattern for everything that X11 basically needs.
  2. The Perl script which converts XDG menus to formats used by WindowMaker and other window managers.
  3. The program which initialises the X11 Window System.
  4. The X display manager.
  5. The Ice Window Manager.

[HR][/HR]Please remember that, due to the powers of the user “root”, early UNIX® folks sometimes referred to it as being “the root of all evil” …

I saw this command on a related thread here:

“pam-config --add --systemd”

Can I safely run this command?

You can take a look at the openSUSE GNOME User Guide: <https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/gnomeuser/html/book.gnomeuser/index.html&gt;.
If you navigate to this section: <https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/gnomeuser/html/book.gnomeuser/cha-gnomeuser-start.html#sec-gnome-desktop&gt;, scroll down to the Figure 1.3 “GNOME Desktop” – if your Desktop looks something like that, it’s GNOME.

/var/log/zypp/history will show exactly what happened.

Better not – it’s possibly not related to what’s happening here!

Yes, exactly – as in the list I’ve posted – probably program which initialises the X11 Window System: “xinit”.

  • Please, please, please, do not ask “If I only install that, will the system be repaired?”

The quick answer is: “No, it won’t!” …

  • “xterm” is a basic system component which is pulled in by a base Pattern – you’ll have to reinstall – forcibly – everything related to the broken dependencies.

True.
We’re dealing with broken dependencies here, which may well be repaired by simply forcibly reinstalling everything which was removed.

  • The first item which should be forcibly reinstalled is: “patterns-base-x11” – this should pull in most of what has been removed via the pattern’s “recommends” list.

Checked. I believe I have a KDE system.

Thanks for helping me clarify that.