Can't start Gnome3 nor Cinnamon

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1

Hi,

I’m running opensuse 13.1 with kde and I wanted to give Cinnamon and Gnome3 a try.
So I installed the gnome pattern in yast and used the one-click-install from Portal:Cinnamon but gnome gives me the “oh no! something has gone wrong” and Cinnamon says it crashed and is running in fallback mode, but isn’t really usable.

I’ve tried using gdm instead of kdm, but before I can log in it also shows me the “oh no! something has gone wrong” message too and I can’t do anything after that.

I’ve no idea where to start debugging this problem. Can you guys help me out? In what files should I look for error messages?

thanks in advance

2

evilnoxx wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I’m running opensuse 13.1 with kde and I wanted to give Cinnamon and
> Gnome3 a try.
> So I installed the gnome pattern in yast and used the one-click-install
> from Portal:Cinnamon but gnome gives me the “oh no! something has gone
> wrong” and Cinnamon says it crashed and is running in fallback mode, but
> isn’t really usable.
>
> I’ve tried using gdm instead of kdm, but before I can log in it also
> shows me the “oh no! something has gone wrong” message too and I can’t
> do anything after that.
>
> I’ve no idea where to start debugging this problem. Can you guys help me
> out? In what files should I look for error messages?
>
> thanks in advance
>
>

Do you have the packages mentioned in the below link:-

http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Cinnamon/Packages#Basic_Information_about_Cinnamon_packages:

Note:-
Gnome Shell as in GNOME DE is supported but Cinnamon is not official DE
as mentioned in the below link

http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Cinnamon

–
GNOME 3.10.2
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) 64-bit
Kernel Linux 3.11.6-4-desktop

3

Only package not installed is mdm, but since “Users are free to use Lightdm, XDM, GDM, or KDM instead.” I figured i’d try it with kdm or gdm…

4

I think most of the time this points to a graphics driver problem.

So, what graphics card do you have? What driver are you using (i.e. did you install any proprietary driver)?

Please upload your /var/log/Xorg.0.log to http://susepaste.org/ and post a link.

Please install the package “Mesa-demo-x” and post the output of:

glxinfo | grep render

run as user. You can do that in KDE of course.

5

I’ve an nvidia 8600gts and I use the official nvidia proprietary drivers from the repositories.
here is my Xorg.0.log: SUSE Paste and the output of glxinfo | grep render

 noxx@linux-fscm:~> glxinfo | grep render
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 8600 GTS/PCIe/SSE2
    GL_KTX_buffer_region, GL_NVX_conditional_render, GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info, 
    GL_NV_ES1_1_compatibility, GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_conditional_render, 
    GL_NV_path_rendering, GL_NV_pixel_data_range, GL_NV_point_sprite, 
    GL_KTX_buffer_region, GL_NVX_conditional_render, GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info, 
    GL_NV_ES1_1_compatibility, GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_conditional_render, 
    GL_NV_path_rendering, GL_NV_pixel_data_range, GL_NV_point_sprite,
6

OK, this all looks fine.
So the graphics driver does not seem to be the reason.

Hm, maybe there’s something of interest in /var/log/gdm/ ?

7

The greeter.log had a weird error…

linux-fscm:/var/log/gdm # cat \:0-greeter.log
/usr/bin/gnome-session: symbol lookup error: /usr/bin/gnome-session: undefined symbol: g_spawn_check_exit_status

and the slave.log had this 10 times:

Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keygdm-simple-slave[971]: WARNING: Unable to connect to display :0

followed by a

gdm-simple-slave[971]: WARNING: Unable to connect to display after 10 tries - bailing out
8

Yes, this is your problem obviously.

But g_spawn_check_exit_status() has been introduced with libglib 2.34 already AFIACT:
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/commits-list/2012-July/msg02178.html
And openSUSE 13.1 contains 2.38.

Are you sure you installed Cinnamon from the repo for 13.1, or did you add a repo for an earlier openSUSE version by mistake?

Please post your repo list:

zypper lr -d

And which version of gnome-session and libglib-2_0-0 do you have installed?

rpm -qi gnome-session libglib-2_0-0
9

The repos seem fine…

noxx@linux-fscm:~> zypper lr -d
# | Alias                        | Name                                    | Enabled | Refresh | Priority | Type   | URI                                                                             | Service
--+------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+---------+---------+----------+--------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------
1 | X11:Cinnamon:Factory         | X11:Cinnamon:Factory                    | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/Cinnamon:/Factory/openSUSE_13.1/ |        
2 | download.nvidia.com-opensuse | nVidia Graphics Drivers                 | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/13.1/                                       |        
3 | download.opensuse.org-Extra  | openSUSE BuildService - KDE:Extra       | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Extra/openSUSE_13.1/             |        
4 | download.opensuse.org-Wine   | openSUSE BuildService - Wine CVS Builds | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Emulators:/Wine/openSUSE_13.1/        |        
5 | ftp.gwdg.de-suse             | Packman Repository                      | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/packman/suse/openSUSE_13.1/                        |        
6 | libdvdcss repository         | libdvdcss repository                    | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://opensuse-guide.org/repo/13.1/                                            |        
7 | repo-13.1-oss                | openSUSE-13.1-OSS                       | Yes     | No      |   99     | yast2  | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.1/repo/oss/                        |        
8 | repo-13.1-update             | openSUSE-13.1 Update-Oss                | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/update/13.1/                                       |        
9 | repo-update-non-oss          | openSUSE-13.1-Update-Non-Oss            | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/update/13.1-non-oss/                               |

And here is the output of rpm -qi gnome-session libglib-2_0-0

noxx@linux-fscm:~> rpm -qi gnome-session libglib-2_0-0
Name        : gnome-session
Version     : 3.10.1
Release     : 1.1
Architecture: i586
Install Date: Thu 23 Jan 2014 11:12:28 PM WET
Group       : System/GUI/GNOME
Size        : 104460
License     : GPL-2.0+
Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Mon 14 Oct 2013 09:16:36 AM WEST, Key ID b88b2fd43dbdc284
Source RPM  : gnome-session-3.10.1-1.1.src.rpm
Build Date  : Mon 14 Oct 2013 09:16:27 AM WEST
Build Host  : build81
Relocations : (not relocatable)
Packager    : http://bugs.opensuse.org
Vendor      : openSUSE
URL         : http://www.gnome.org
Summary     : Session Tools for the GNOME Desktop
Description :
This package provides the basic session tools, like session management
functionality, for the GNOME Desktop.
Distribution: openSUSE 13.1
Name        : libglib-2_0-0
Version     : 2.38.2
Release     : 8.2
Architecture: i586
Install Date: Thu 12 Dec 2013 02:48:48 PM WET
Group       : System/Libraries
Size        : 1383171
License     : LGPL-2.1+
Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Wed 11 Dec 2013 03:38:20 PM WET, Key ID b88b2fd43dbdc284
Source RPM  : glib2-2.38.2-8.2.src.rpm
Build Date  : Mon 25 Nov 2013 10:49:01 AM WET
Build Host  : build35
Relocations : (not relocatable)
Packager    : http://bugs.opensuse.org
Vendor      : openSUSE
URL         : http://www.gtk.org/
Summary     : General-Purpose Utility Library
Description :
GLib is a general-purpose utility library, which provides many useful
data types, macros, type conversions, string utilities, file utilities,
a main loop abstraction, and so on.
Distribution: openSUSE 13.1
10

Yes.

And here is the output of rpm -qi gnome-session libglib-2_0-0

This looks fine as well.
Hm, strange.

Try to run “sudo zypper dup”, does that update anything? Do you get any conflict?

Try “sudo zypper inr”, that installs all recommended packages. Maybe you are missing one?

Can you run GNOME applications in KDE? (try to start “gedit” f.e. in Konsole. If you get an error please post it)

Do you maybe have an incompatible libglib somewhere else on your system?

find / -name libglib*
11

zypper dup updated a bunch of packages and now both DEs seem to work fine. Thank you for your help!
Just one more question. I’ve only used zypper dup when upgrading from one version of opensuse to another. I though that was all it was used for. I guess I was wrong. Anyway what does zypper dup do any way, and when should I use it?

12

Normally you shouldn’t. Stick to “zypper up” for updates, or your DE’s update applet.

The main difference between “zypper dup” and “zypper up” are:

  • “dup” does not care about the “vendor”, i.e. it just takes the highest versioned package from all repos you have configured. “up” on the other side won’t change an installed package to a version from a different repo.
  • “dup” also downgrades packages if only a lower version is available. “up” only upgrades to a higher version, if only a lower version of a package is available it does nothing, i.e. it keeps the installed package.

So I guess you had some left-over higher-version-than-in-the-repos package(s) installed that caused the problem because they were not compatible to the rest (did you install packages from the Cinnamon repo maybe when you still had an older openSUSE version, f.e.? They would still be installed after the distribution upgrade if you removed that repo before.). “zypper dup” did downgrade that now to the only available lower version.