Leap 42.2 KDE Issues

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1

I’m running Leap 42.2 and I am a relatively new openSuse user. I’ve been using Fedora for years and was really looking for something a bit more stable which is why Leap appealed to me in theory. I’m currently using KDE and I probably get 3-4 plasma desktop crashes per day. This version of KDE is hyped to be very stable, but I am not seeing that at all. I’m wondering if anyone else is having issues with Plasma?

My problems I think are mainly centered around running a laptop which is usually in a docking station which I have hooked to two external displays. Typically I have my primary display setup in folder view and then the secondary display with just desktop view and I have the same background on both. It is very common that as soon as I undock my laptop plasma will crash and I will now have one of the default backgrounds set. I’ll go to a meeting and take my laptop with me. I come back to my desk and put my laptop in the dock and when it comes up my primary and secondary displays will both be set to folder view and most times that background is now back to one of the defaults again. It’s not show stopping, but very annoying and not what I expected from an LTS release. Most times plasmashell will restart and I can change my background back, but when it does this I am not able to switch my secondary display back to a desktop view. It seems stuck in folder view until I either logout or restart.

I generally prefer the desktop experience and customizability of KDE, but this is getting me pretty close to switching to gnome. Does anyone know if some kde updates are pending for Leap 42.2 or have any other suggestions? Thanks in advance!

2

Probably video issues what video card?

3

This is an older Dell latitude with just standard intel graphics in it.

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0b) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

4

On an Optimus ( Intel + NVIDIA ) laptop, with NVIDIA shut off completely, I don’t see any crashes. But, this looks like a graphics issue, yes. How is the composiror rendering set? Systemsettings - DIsplay and Monitor.
Is /home being reused from a previous install?

5

Yes, an update to Plasma 5.8.3 is indeed pending, and it will also include some additional fixes (especially for multi-monitor systems) taken from 5.8.4 (which is not released yet).

I cannot tell you when that update will finally be released, but it should not take too long.

For now, you may try to disable the KScreen2 service in “Configure Desktop”->Startup and Shutdown->Background Services.
Plasma will not get notified about display changes then, which may prevent your problems.

6

It is already available for testing in the update-test repo though.
So if you want to try it, add this as repo and update your system as usual:
http://download.opensuse.org/update/leap/42.2-test/

It would probably be a good idea to disable/remove that repo afterwards though.
Updates appear there first so that people can test them and report problems.
That means that there can be problems, though usually not.

But the updates do appear in the normal update repo about a week later normally anyway.

7

Current compositor settings are as follows:

Animation Speed: Middle of slider
Scale Method: Accurate
Rendering Backend: OpenGL 2.0
Tearing Prevention: Automatic
Keep window thumbnails: Only for Shown Windows
Allow applications to block compositing is checked.

8

I added the repo and updated the packages from there. Hopefully, this will help clear things up a bit. Based on the build information it does sound hopeful that it should help things. I will give it a try and see what happens. I have subsequently disabled the repo for now. Thank you for the information!

9

intel chips are known to be buggy with plasma 5
the kde devs recommend using uxa acceleration as a workaround
https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-distro-packagers/2015-August/000088.html
it’s an old bug if you have kate installed do this:
create the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

kdesu kate /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

paste this in it


Section "Device"
     Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
     Driver      "intel"
     Option      "AccelMethod"  "uxa"
EndSection

if you don’t have kate use kwrite ie

kdesu kwrite /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
10

Hi,

the described configuration was not successful in my case (I’m always switching between laptop alone and connected to external display or projector).
The following 20-intel.conf configuration worked fine for me:
Section “Device”
Identifier “Intel”
Driver “modesetting”
Option “AccelMethod” “glamor”
Option “Backlight” “intel_backlight”
EndSection

The boot process and login need more time, but then always worked fine.

Best,

Michael

11

A couple of points:

  • as an FYI, you don’t need the AccelMethod option, as glamor is the modesetting driver’s default anyway … though, at the same time, its not hurting anything being there
  • the Backlight option is for the intel driver, and is not applicable to the modesetting driver (see “man intel” and “man modesetting”) … try removing that to see if your login speed is improved … you might want to consult your current xorg log to see if the x server configuration is tripping on that misused driver option … in any regard, you might be interested in this: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=96572 … also https://github.com/haikarainen/light
12

This is a special case that still was broken (on some systems at least) but should be fixed in Plasma 5.8.5:
https://bugs.kde.org/373880

The problem was actually that Plasma did not notice the screen change and think the same display got reconnected (and therefore use a wrong resolution).

Switching to the modesetting driver probably may help because it might behave differently and not trigger that particular problem.

I cannot tell you currently when the next update for 42.2 will be released, but you could try to install the latest packages from KDE:Frameworks5:LTS if you want.
OTOH, sticking to the modesetting driver should be fine too and not really have disadvantages.