Successful login using SDDM sometimes gives a blank screen

[DavidL]

@mrmazda

Patches and deltarpm are not in my vocabulary. I never use anything but zypper for updates, and these dependency issues you’re encountering, in my recollection (which isn’t all that good), simply do not happen. There may occasionally be mirror issues that clear up after a few hours, but they don’t cause breakage:

That sounds like a really good recommendation, zypper it is from now on. I downloaded a zypper usage cheat-sheet alnost 4 years ago, and I’ll print it out.

However I’ve now fallen over a classic Catch-22: the safe-boot / sure-start / trusted-platform-management / etc… won’t let me boot from a Leap 15.4 installation DVD or a Gparted DVD. In fact, I can’t even boot the O/S normally, a snapshot must be selected at boot time; I probably have to change both the BIOS and Leap configurations.

However this is an area where it’s very easy to finish up with a doorstop, and it’s way outside my expertise. Is there a diagnostic (and repair) program I can run from a snapshot O/S?

[mrmazda]

@DavidL

Is there a diagnostic (and repair) program I can run from a snapshot O/S?

I can’t help you there. Zypper is so good, among other reasons, that I’ve never considered even testing BTRFS. I do have a rarely used laptop with BTRFS, but it was given to me with Leap already installed on BTRFS. Very likely it was 15.0 it came with, and it has been zypper upgraded with each Leap release.

[karlmistelberger]

@DavidL

However I’ve now fallen over a classic Catch-22: the safe-boot / sure-start / trusted-platform-management / etc… won’t let me boot from a Leap 15.4 installation DVD or a Gparted DVD. In fact, I can’t even boot the O/S normally, a snapshot must be selected at boot time; I probably have to change both the BIOS and Leap configurations.

Most users don’t need it. Get rid of it: After a shim update yesterday, no longer able to boot with secure boot enabled - #23 by karlmistelberger

Stay with UEFI. Turn off Compatibility Support Module. Use default partitioning. The openSUSE installer suggests for empty disks:

3400G:~ # fdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.94 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 950 PRO 512GB               
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: A84F222E-0177-499B-A7EA-BDA6F31E2196

Device          Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1   2048     206847     204800   100M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 206848 1000214527 1000007680 476.8G Linux filesystem
3400G:~ # 

3400G:~ # lsblk -f /dev/nvme0n1
NAME        FSTYPE FSVER LABEL                UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1                                                                                           
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat   FAT16                      6DEC-64F9                              97.4M     2% /boot/efi
└─nvme0n1p2 btrfs        tumbleweed-nvme0n1p2 e7ad401f-4f60-42ff-a07e-f54372bc1dbc    289G    39% /var
                                                                                                  /home
                                                                                                  /opt
                                                                                                  /root
                                                                                                  /usr/local
                                                                                                  /srv
                                                                                                  /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi
                                                                                                  /boot/grub2/i386-pc
                                                                                                  /.snapshots
                                                                                                  /
3400G:~ # 

[DavidL]

@karlmistelberger

Most users don’t need it. Get rid of it: After a shim update yesterday, no longer able to boot with secure boot enabled - #23 by karlmistelberger

Stay with UEFI. Turn off Compatibility Support Module. Use default partitioning. The openSUSE installer suggests for empty disks:

Better advice was never offered! I began to have doubts about the wisdom of some of the default installation options myself at the time, after all it is only a domestic / home-office system and snapper works.

So now my shiny new desktop is in a cupboard. Since a backlog of tasks was piling up, I recreated the Leap 15.4 system on an 11-year old HP desktop and that is now working faultlessly.

When the UEFI box is powered up it displays two lines on the console device, pauses briefly, and powers down. The first line reports a boot inconsistency leading to a PolicyKit security violation, and the second reads “Something is seriously wrong…”.

The contents of the SDD device is of no consequence now; all I want to do is to boot from the DVD reader. Is there some keyboard sequence I can enter during the brief pause mentioned above to achieve this?

If no-one has any suggestions I’ll open a new topic after I get rid of the backlog of work.

[nrickert]

You will probably need to disable secure-boot for now.

[DavidL]

The boot process doesn’t get far enough to offer boot options: it’s power-on, display the two lines of error information described above, pause for a few seconds, then power-down.

[nrickert]

You will need to go into BIOS settings, and disable secure-boot there.

[DavidL]

Thanks nrickert, I’ll work on that but I don’t think the firmware gets far enough to action the F10 key. I’ll post an update when I know more.

[gogalthorp]

hmmm if you can’t get to the BIOS/UEFI then this is a hardware problem fo sure.