How can I reinstate KDE 4.2 after 4.3 update?

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I felt like a bit of a laugh.

I got an extremely comical desktop without any background, and hardly anything seemed to work. Plus xorg and plasma were happily feasting away together on 99% of my CPU cycles!

I tried removing ALL KDE4 related stuff, removing the old KDE4 factory repos, and adding the new KDE42 repos and re-installing it as suggested by caf4926 here -

KDE4.2.* (How To Add) Guide. - openSUSE Forums

Funny thing is I still get the odd desktop, high CPU usage, and nothing works.

There’s a screenie of what I see here -

May 2009 Screenshot Thread - Page 2 - openSUSE Forums

Any help appreciated :slight_smile:

#2

If you go to yast software management are all the packages updated/rolled back to 4.2.3 ? If you cant run yast from the desktop, start it from level 3, user login, then su

yast

Did you try a rename of the .kde4?
I find when you get that kind of mess it screws up all manner of things in the settings.

#3

Yeah, I moved my .kde4 folder into a temp folder, oddly it still did the exact same thing but with a different arrangement of menubaricons!

Very odd.

And all the KDE4 apps are indeed version 4.2.3.

I didn’t remove my .kde folder though, but I did try logging into another account and it was still all over the place.

It has that massive systray in the middle of the menubar that you can’t resize, and the menus appear at the top of the screen!

Maybe it’s the Nvidia driver, I’m using the latest self-compiled one?

#4

I’m not sure how much of a position I am in to offer advice as I know you are experienced yourself.
Are you able to login at all, eg; say if you had kde3 or gnome installed too. What about icewm if you login with that? I can’t really see it being the nvidia, but that’s easy enough just to run the installer again.
You said you logged in from another account, presumably one that should have been unaffected by your foray with 4.3

Check your log files in /var/log
and .xsession-errors in hidden /home
for any clues.

I’d like to see your repo’s with details

zypper lr --details
#5

If you remove the repo with 4.3, then open yast and pick kde4-runtime and click to update - it should pick up the other kde4 packages as well and put you back to kde 4.2.

I have found that the desktop settings can get messed up when changing versions of kde 4 - so you might need to open up the system .kde4 folder and delete the plasma config files. These are then recreated when you log off and back on again.

#6

Thanks for the help people, I appreciate it.

I would decribe myself as “battle worn”, rather than experienced though ;).

I already had Enlightenment 17 installed, but I also installed KDE3 as a backup as well, mainly because I couldn’t get the Yast2 GUI working in E17! It gave me a text interface version instead. The problem is that it’s a horrid light blue background with white text and I can’t read the bleedin’ thing!!

Both E17 and KDE3 work fine with the Nvidia driver, although none of them use compositing if that makes a difference?

zypper lr --details shows -

#  | Alias                | Name                                    | Enabled | Refresh | Priority | Type   | URI                                                                                                                    | Service
---+----------------------+-----------------------------------------+---------+---------+----------+--------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------
1  | Enlightenment        | Enlightenment                           | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/repositories/home:/dmitry_serpokryl:/Enlightenment-cvs-core-metapackage/openSUSE_11.1 |
2  | KDE:42               | KDE:42                                  | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/42/openSUSE_11.1/                                                       |
3  | KDE_42_Community     | KDE 42 Community                        | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE%3a/KDE4%3a/Community/openSUSE_11.1_KDE_42                                |
4  | devel:tools:building | devel:tools:building                    | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/tools:/building/openSUSE_11.1/                                        |
5  | repo                 | NVIDIA Repository                       | No      | No      |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/11.1                                                                               |
6  | repo-debug           | openSUSE-11.1-Debug                     | No      | No      |  100     | NONE   | http://download.opensuse.org/debug/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/                                                         |
7  | repo-non-oss         | openSUSE-11.1-Non-Oss                   | Yes     | Yes     |  120     | yast2  | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/non-oss/                                                           |
8  | repo-oss             | openSUSE-11.1-Oss                       | Yes     | Yes     |  120     | yast2  | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/                                                               |
9  | repo-source          | openSUSE-11.1-Source                    | No      | No      |  100     | NONE   | http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/                                                        |
10 | repo-update          | openSUSE-11.1-Update                    | Yes     | Yes     |  120     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.1/                                                                              |
11 | repo_1               | openSUSE BuildService - KDE:Community   | No      | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Community/openSUSE_11.1/                                                |
12 | repo_2               | openSUSE BuildService - Games           | No      | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/games/openSUSE_11.1/                                                         |
13 | repo_3               | VideoLan Repository                     | No      | No      |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/SuSE/11.1/                                                               |
14 | repo_4               | Packman Repository                      | No      | No      |   99     | rpm-md | http://ftp.skynet.be/pub/packman/suse/11.1/                                                                            |
15 | repo_5               | openSUSE BuildService - Mozilla         | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_11.1/                                                       |
16 | repo_6               | openSUSE BuildService - Wine CVS Builds | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Emulators:/Wine/openSUSE_11.1/

@dth -

I can’t find any kde4-runtime package when I search, I looked manually and can’t find it either! I know I did something stupidly wrong somewhere, just not sure where :(.

#7

kdebase4-runtime is probably what is being referred to.

What does

zypper lu

show

#8

zypper lu gives -

Retrieving repository 'openSUSE BuildService - Wine CVS Builds' metadata [done]
Building repository 'openSUSE BuildService - Wine CVS Builds' cache [done]
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Repository | Name                             | Version             | Arch
--+------------+----------------------------------+---------------------+-------
v | KDE:42     | compiz-gnome                     | 0.7.8-8.4           | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | compiz-kde                       | 0.7.8-8.4           | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | google-gadgets                   | 0.10.5-3.2          | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | google-gadgets-qt                | 0.10.5-3.2          | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | kde4-kio_sysinfo-branding-respin | 11.1.1-67.2         | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | kde4-plasmoid-quickaccess        | 0.8-3.4             | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | kde4-webkitpart                  | 4.2.3.svn967285-3.2 | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | kdebase4-session                 | 4.2.3-5.2           | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | kio_iso                          | 2.0.0-3.3           | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | ktorrent                         | 3.2.1-4.4           | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | ktorrent-lang                    | 3.2.1-4.4           | i586
v | KDE:42     | libphonon4-32bit                 | 4.3.1-3.2           | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | libsoprano4-32bit                | 2.2.2-3.2           | x86_64
v | KDE:42     | libstrigi0-32bit                 | 0.6.4-3.3           | x86_64
#9

I just downgraded as i was getting too many crashes.
I added the kde2.2 repos them went to yast selected kde4 and chose update unconditionally. Had a lot of conflicts but just chose to downgrade packages.
Then i rebooted an did checked with zypper up in a console gave me a few updates and now i am back to 4.32 :slight_smile:

Geoff

#10

Lucky boy Geoffro!

I did all the updates but still no luck, I’m wondering if it’s a kernel issue seeing as I’m running a custom built 2.6.29.3 version?

Other than that I have no idea why the “upgrade” would make this odd desktop stay there!

What is the best way to totally erase ALL KDE4 stuff and start again from scratch?

Oh yes, and I have libqt 4.5 installed I believe if that makes any difference.

#11

I’m certain qt45 stuff has to go.

FYI there is no easy uninstall of kde4, to be frank, I would just re-install myself if I couldn’t figure it out.

#12

lol, yeah, I think you might be right there. Although it would be interesting to know exactly why it’s doing this!

I’m kind of enjoying the KDE3 experience at the mo too :smiley:

#13

I’m not sure what to suggest.
You could go really radical and just leave the default repo’s and add in the stable kde4 (4.1.3)
then system wide update

If that brings it back to life try taking stable out and put 42 back

#14

You should definitely get rid of qt 45 and use 44 pretty sure it’s not a kernel issue
For me zypper lr gives

#  | Alias                 | Name                  | Enabled | Refresh
---+-----------------------+-----------------------+---------+--------
1  | KDE4.32               | KDE4.32               | Yes     | Yes
2  | KDE4.32_Community     | KDE4.32 Community     | Yes     | Yes
3  | KDE4.32_Playground    | KDE4.32 Playground    | Yes     | Yes
4  | Mozilla               | Mozilla               | Yes     | Yes
5  | Nvidia                | Nvidia                | Yes     | Yes
6  | Packman_1             | Packman               | Yes     | Yes
7  | Qt44                  | Qt44                  | Yes     | Yes
8  | VLC                   | VLC                   | No      | Yes
9  | Wine                  | Wine                  | Yes     | Yes
10 | devel:tools:building  | devel:tools:building  | Yes     | Yes
11 | games                 | games                 | Yes     | Yes
12 | openSUSE:11.1:NonFree | openSUSE:11.1:NonFree | Yes     | Yes
13 | repo-debug            | openSUSE-11.1-Debug   | Yes     | Yes
14 | repo-non-oss          | openSUSE-11.1-Non-Oss | Yes     | Yes
15 | repo-oss              | openSUSE-11.1-Oss     | Yes     | Yes
16 | repo-source           | openSUSE-11.1-Source  | Yes     | Yes
17 | repo-update           | openSUSE-11.1-Update  | Yes     | Yes

Geoff

#15

Thanks lads, I’ll give it a go over the weekend :smiley:

#16

OK, all fixed.

I removed ALL the repos, then added the standard ones back in. Then removed every piece of KDE4 software I could find.

Then I used the 1-click here -

KDE/KDE4 - openSUSE

…to install KDE 4.2.3.

I had a bit of strife with dependencies and rollbacks, but in the end it all worked out :D.

That was a fun adventure!

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.