loging out from a graphic session provokes screen flickering and does not allow relogin.

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Once you boot leap 15.0, startup screen with kernel version mentioning appears, followed by a displaying 3 green-small question marks, and finally keyboard is displayed at the bottom of the screen. If one clicks on it, one gets the graphic logon screen.
One can login & the graphic session starts and seems to works pretty well.

This said, should one care to logout though, one enters a crazy state: screen get black & flickers in character mode, so does some lights on the keyboard, you can not enter any input and the only thing that stops this flickering is the reset button.

Does anyone encountered this previously? How can this be corrected?

                                                                            thanks for any feedback, friendly yours SH.
#2

Allow me to add, that this does not happen if you lock you graphic session: that seems to work fine. The logging out gives the flickering issues described in my previous thread. Friendly yours SH.

#3

How is the compositing set? Systemsettings - Display and Monitor - Compositor

Since this is most likely related to your NVIDIA card, please show output of ( as normal user )


ls -l /dev/nv*
ls -l /dev/video*
groups
#4

I wonder if SDDM is supposed to be differently configured according to whether or not Plymouth is used? If yes, it may not have been adjusted along with your NVidia driver re-installation for 15.0. openSUSE devs have no control over the content of the proprietary installation scripts.

Do you have any encrypted partitions? Plymouth removal (necessitated by NVidia driver installation) can cause problems with encryption. See e.g. https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1047225

#5

No, not the case

Also, the plymouth stuff doesn’t influence logout from a desktop.

@OP, please create a new user, login as that user and see if the flickering exists for that user. If not, the culprit lives in your homedir, if yes, we need to investigate the nvidia install.

#6

KDM has an option to restart the server when the greeter reopens after a logout, which I always have enabled. Though I never have openSUSE’s Plymouth installed, I would expect SDDM to have a similar DM restart function, and thus interplay with Plymouth, which AFAIK does reappear when reboot is selected and systemd performs its shutdown activities.

#7

KDM is dead. No user is able to follow the defaults and yet end up with KDM.

#8

That’s both debatable

# grep RETT /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="openSUSE Tumbleweed"

# uname -a
Linux big41 4.18.7-1-default #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Sep 9 10:26:20 UTC 2018 (952d850) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

# zypper se -s kdm | egrep -v 'src|debug|586' | tail -n7
S  | Name                   | Type       | Version        | Arch   | Repository
---+------------------------+------------+----------------+--------+-----------
   | kde3-kdm-themes        | package    | 0.0.1-2.10     | noarch | KDE3
i+ | kdebase3-kdm           | package    | 3.5.10.1-329.3 | x86_64 | KDE3
 l | kdm                    | package    | 4.11.22-15.3   | x86_64 | OSS
 l | kdm-branding-upstream  | package    | 4.11.22-15.3   | x86_64 | OSS
 l | kdmtheme               | package    | 1.2.2-1.23     | x86_64 | KDE3

# systemctl status xdm | head
â display-manager.service - X Display Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/display-manager.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: activating (start) since Sun 2018-09-30 13:52:10 EDT; 1min 22s ago
  Process: 1433 ExecStart=/usr/lib/X11/display-manager start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Tasks: 7 (limit: 4676)
   CGroup: /system.slice/display-manager.service
           ââ1458 /opt/kde3/bin/kdm
           ââ1464 /usr/bin/Xorg -br -nolisten tcp :0 vt7 -auth /var/lib/xdm/authdir/authfiles/A:0-b7ngic
           ââ1471 -:0
           ââ1472 /opt/kde3/bin/kdm_greet

and irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. I have 0 installations with SDDM, 0 installations with LightDM, 0 installations with GDM, and too many to keep track of with KDM, KDM3 or TDM (not only openSUSE, but also Fedora 27,28,29 and a variety of Debians), all of which have restart of server on logout enabled. SDDM and LightDM continue to lack features KDM3, KDM & TDM have and that I and I’m sure others depend on.

No user is able to follow the defaults and yet end up with KDM.
One of the reasons for using any Linux distro is not being stuck using defaults. :slight_smile:

Back to the point, does SDDM really never have any interplay with Plymouth?

#9

I don’t know much about the interplay that would/should be required, but I do know that it is configured to kill plymouth before starting…

# cat /usr/lib/systemd/system/sddm.service
[Unit]
Description=Simple Desktop Display Manager
Documentation=man:sddm(1) man:sddm.conf(5)
Conflicts=getty@tty7.service
After=systemd-user-sessions.service getty@tty7.service plymouth-quit.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/sddm
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/plymouth quit --retain-splash
Restart=always

[Install]
Alias=display-manager.service
#10

I hope this is all you requested & need, should that not be the case, please be more specific…

I must admit I did not understand much of you chat with other guys about SDDM, KDM, etc…abut what is dead & what is not etc…I hope it does not matter much, thanks for your help , friendly yours SH

#11

I’m not sure if this is a display manager issue or an nvidia issue, but you could try (as has been suggested in these forums a number of times recently) switching display manager (eg to lightdm or xdm) to see whether this helps.

sudo update-alternatives --config default-displaymanager

select the required, then reboot. Is the flickering still evident?

#12

I did various SW updates this pb is not fixed and I have no clue how to fix it. Anyone can help? Thanks SH.

#13

I have tried to choose other display managers without real success.
Choice 4 (XDM?) was not solving the pb, choice 2 was somewhat better the system entered character mode and I do not know how to start a graphic session.
I tried other choices A CATASTROPHY: now I can not even get the graphic session at all…so now please help me to get back to initial state where display manager was 0

Thanks for your help SH.

#14

Which Plasma session are you trying to use, Xorg, or Wayland?

I still think removing Plymouth should be tried. It doesn’t hurt anything except possibly encryption for it to be absent, and has often been reported to solve problems with video. None of my NVidia gfx hardware has either proprietary drivers or Plymouth installed, and they all work just fine, including those with dual displays (none here with 15.0 use Plasma, which I only have installed in Tumbleweed, and I have SDDM installed in neither). I suggest if you are going to do this that you first try with the Xorg-integrated modesetting driver. Your other thread reported use of nouveau. To use modesetting, use yast or zypper to remove the xf86-video-nouveau package.

If Plymouth removal doesn’t help, I suggest to purge NVidia drivers from the installation by following the instructions that accompanied installation precisely, which necessarily includes purging nomodeset and nouveau.modeset=0 from Grub stanzas. The GeForce GT 520 is old enough that either or both of the FOSS X drivers (modesetting and nouveau) should be satisfactory for normal use (which possibly excludes demanding gaming).

Update-alternatives cannot configure lightdm if it is not first installed.

#15

Using leap 15.0 i can not even reach login in character mode. In addition the grub configuration got broken so that I lost even my win 10 booting capability i.e. mycomputer is dead! I write this from my iPad tablet.
The risque mode has no zyepper so I can not reinstall nvidia drivers.
I am an old openSuse user, starting with CD based ver 7.0, using various PC workstations in dual boot via Grub, but NEVER ever I faced such a disaster.

Please help me to reach at least normal character mode login. Thanks SH.

#16

Using leap 15.0 i can not even reach login in character mode. In addition the grub configuration got broken so that I lost even my win 10 booting capability i.e. mycomputer is dead! I write this from my iPad tablet.
The risque mode has no zyepper so I can not reinstall nvidia drivers.
I am an old openSuse user, starting with CD based ver 7.0, using various PC workstations in dual boot via Grub, but NEVER ever I faced such a disaster.

Please help me to reach at least normal character mode login. Thanks SH.
E.g. are there any boot options to chane display manager towards xdm?

#17

You’ve booted installation media, selected to boot the installed system on the HD, and it fails to boot the HD?

#18

If I boot from leap 15 Usb stick, and then I choose to boot from Hd and I do not reach the login in ch mode. If I boot from the same Usb but I update the syst 1st, it does a minimum update (few packages) but then booting from Hd gives the same result: does not reach even the ch mode login.
I have to repl the video driver(nvidia card) but I need to get to ch mode 1st and have IP connectivity.

Now, as I type, I havea dead PC: grub dual boot does not allow Win-10 booting option anymore (though it did that before and win-10 is there installed), linux boot can be done using leap 15 but that option does not reach ch mode because starting graphic mode fails but login to ch mode is not reached, computer hangs.
help, please help. Thanks SH.

#19

Maybe giving Grub a special option (using C: or E: features to enter Grub window) I can force Grub to boot Win-10 as it did in the past or Force Grub to boot leap 15 but with specific graphic mode params.

#20

AS I indicated in previous threads I am a long time OpenSuse user (since ver 7.2 maybe).
This said, given the very weak support I get lately from the forum, given that the OpenSuse Leap 15.0 can not even reach character mode login in case the graphic setup fails, I decided to my deepest regrets give up OpenSuse all together.
My request for help dates since weeks without getting your attention for even a question for more information.

It’s a pity since I worked since long with this distribution and I liked it, but enough is enough: time for a change or give up.>:(
Wishing you to have some more resilient clients, all the best friendly yours SH.