openSuse 12.3 unable to start any DE (probably because of my old configs)

English Install/Boot/Login
1

So yesterday I made a hop from Ubuntu 12.10 to openSuse 12.3. The installation process went flawlessly, KDM started without any issues but I can’t login to any DE including fail-safes (i can login with x turned off no problem). The screen just goes black for a second and then I’m back to KDM. Since my /home is on a separate drive my guess is that this is caused by some old configs. I already moved or deleted some of them but that made no difference and I don’t want to just go in blind renaming all of my configs until something helps because for one thing it would be really time consuming and I’m not even sure if it really is caused by my old configs, so I figured I would ask if anyone knows what could cause that.

EDIT: I’m using 64-bit version.

2

~/.kde4 rename it.

But could be a video problem what video? have you installed the driver for it?

3

I believe I had one of the Nvidia 314 drivers installed. I don’t know what kind of driver issue would allow KDM to start and not KDE failsafe mode or IceWM

4

Well go the command line run yast and pull in the video for your card. You will want it any way and it may correct the problem if renaming ~/.kde4 dies not work

Also check and see if the root partition is full. If it filles up then you may not be able to start a desktop

5

Hello frecel,

It sounds like you have a video driver problem, as far as I know you do not need to modify or delete any config files to fix the problem.
So lets get some facts,

  1. the system boots to a openSUSE boot menu?
  2. from there it fails to boot and kicks you back to a shell prompt?
  3. you can log into a shell or you are kicked back to a shell?

There are some logs to look at like /var/log/Xorg.log etc… You should also be able to type dmesg to get some info at the command prompt to get some more info.

Otherwilse please search the forums for Nvidia and see what you can find.

6

As I wrote before the login manager starts just as it should. Nothing kicks me back to shell prompt, when login fails I’m back in the kdm screen. I can log into a shell. I also just noticed that I can log into the Failsafe mode where it’s just a wallpaper and xterm. And I was also able to start dolphin with no issues. That led me to think that maybe it’s the compositor that causes the issues but wouldn’t then KDE failsafe mode work as well?

I checked and I have no ~/.kde* or ~/.config/kde* which is no surprise since I never used this /home partition with KDE.
I also checked the drivers, I have the driver recommended for my card in https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers

7

Bump. Still not solved.

8

On 03/20/2013 10:16 PM, frecel wrote:
> I checked and I have no ~/.kde* or ~/.config/kde* which is no surprise
> since I never used this /home partition with KDE.

ok, so if i put the above together with this that you wrote in the
thread opening:

So yesterday I made a hop from Ubuntu 12.10 to openSuse 12.3.

i must wonder exactly how you did the hop from Ubuntu to openSUSE??

apparently you (what) saved your /home/[you] during the install? what
kind of install did you do? and, did the install script ask you if
you wanted to use the same /home and user, or what…exactly?

well, let me say this: one should not assume that a /home full of
configs for a completely different disto will give smiles on any
other distro (that would include trying to take an openSUSE /home to
a Fedore system, or any other)…

maybe you can get going by using the ncurses yast to create a new
user and log into that user … hmmmmm… maybe–read my sig caveat
before doing anything after reading what i write!!

let me tell you what i would have done: not try to reused a ubuntu
/home/[you], instead before install i would have renamed /home/[you]
to /home/[youOld] and during install would have given [you] as the
user, logged into as that new you, then as root copy data (ONLY…no
configs or hidden directories) from [youOld] to [you] and let all
those old configs gather dust, and the data there serve as a
reserve…for a while, and then when SURE everything is cool just
delete /home/[youOld]

you can still do all of that, but be SURE to have a good, off machine
and well safe copy of all your data, FIRST!!

let me say that another way: i would have NO idea how to rescue what
you have now and turn it into a well working openSUSE or Ubuntu!

–
dd
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat

9

Dear all, Today I have encountered the same problem. I couldn’t login with an ordinary user after reboot. Login collapsed at the moment of booting KDE. openSUSE 12.3 (64 bit) has shown black screen for a second and reverted to KDM. However, I was able to login as root without any problems. Re-installation of NVIDIA packages has helped. I’m able to login as a normal user and as root. – Kind regards, abalenkm

10

Please, please, please, do not login on a desktop environment as root. Not now, not yesterday, never.

11

I agree never log into a GUI as root. You can log into a terminal as root and use the command line version of Yast to install what is needed