I think this is the problem but why has this symlink been created and when?
File '/etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service' already exists and is a symlink to /usr/lib/systemd/system/display-manager-legacy.service
sudo systemctl enable --now --force sddm.service
This will enable sddm.service, and disable displaymanager-legacy.service
sddm has problems with running as a wayland client, when invoked through the displaymanager-legacy.service.
Well that was an idea but it left me with a resolutely black screen. I have now broken my original and latest snapshot and the previous one too so I am faced with serious work unless somebody can help me with this. I assume both snapshots are present still so I could use a live distro and fix them but all that is well beyond my capability. Is now the time for Slowroll I ask?
Meanwhile help would be much appreciated please.
Further to this I am not clear why sfalken forced the sddm.service. As I read it the problem is with sddm and wayland and it all works with gdm. Why would I need sddm at all? I am inclined to remove sddm.service and create a symlink:-
ln -s /usr/lib/systemd/system/gdm.service /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service
and then enable gdm.service and then enable it and use it as the default graphical interface. My only though is will this screw up KDM?
Any views?
That is the preferred method, especially for those who want to sun SDDM itself as a Wayland client (as I do). The display-manger-legacy service is an older compatibility unit shipped for historical reasons. It is still used on older openSUSE setups where the sysconfig-based DM switching mechanism was embedded in that unit. The update-alternatives mechanism will be deprecated AFAIU.
I didn’t think GDM was working for you either?
I think you mean KDE (Plasma 6). You can user whatever displaymanager you’d like - it’s really only serving as a login screen for the most part.
You’re in a tough place without a working graphical desktop. I can only provide general advice here.
If you can switch to a working VT and log in as user, you could then try starting Plasma Wayland with
QT_LOGGING_RULES="*.debug=true" startplasma-wayland --log-level=debug
Hopefully, you’ll see where the dekstop session hangs or crashes etc.
You can inspect the journal using
sudo journalctl -b -p 3..0
or running this as the same user just to inspect the specific user session
journalctl --user -b
If necessary, you may want to direct this output to a text file, and save it to a USB memory stick perhaps.
After plugging in the stick, examine
lsblk -f
then mount the appropriate device eg if removable device is /dev/sdb1
sudo mkdir -p /tmp/media
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /tmp/media
Example of how to capture to a file…
startplasma-wayland --log-level=debug &> /tmp/media/plasma.log
You can then transfer to a PC with a graphical environment to inspect and share relevant info here.
Hope that gives you enough to work through this.
Hi Dean,
I have trudged through this and now have my system up and running with GDM. Given that I am running with AMD card and I do not need the TW/KDE cutting edge combination you use for professional reasons I am happy with the tried and tested GDM until the Plasma project and SDDM Wayland is fully stable with AMDGPU I assume some time in 2026. The solution for me has been to mask all sddm stuff on my system so hopefully zypper dup will not break my system again. Fingers crossed and thanks again.
All good. Use what works for you. GDM is the displaymanager, but which desktop are now using?
Here are the details:-
alastair@HP-Z640-1:~> echo "Display: $(systemctl show -p SubState display-manager-legacy.service | cut -d= -f2), DM: $(systemctl status display-manager-legacy.service | grep -o '(gdm)'), Session: $XDG_SESSION_TYPE"
Display: running, DM: (gdm), Session: wayland
alastair@HP-Z640-1:~>
Phew, I could have done without all this but am taking more snapshots now until I have all my machines sorted out including VMs. Fingers crossed and thanks for the support.
I asked about which desktop environment you are using.
Hi Dean, I started this thread advising I am using Tumbleweed with KDE desktop and Wayland. Have I missed something? What else do you need to know?
All good. It just wasn’t clear as to whether you were now using a different desktop as well.