My SUSE installation used GNOME as its default GUI. I finally installed KDE 4 as well.
How do I switch between them?
Specifically, how can I get XDM or KDM with an option to select the GUI per user (like it is done on Solaris)?
You must not have auto login enabled and then at the login screen
Your login may look different if you installed gnome first, but just look at the lower part of the screen, if you have the gnome login you need to click your user name first to see the options.
it’s not necessary to switch the desktop and window managers but you might want to do that. Yast>System>etc Sysconfig editor
Desktop>Display manager
Desktop>Window manager
My login screen doesn’t look anything like that.
I just get to select the user (or “other”) and type a password. I can switch resolution (apparently, didn’t try) and input language but not GUIs. The menu in the lower left simply doesn’t exist.
I’ll post a screenshot when I get home.
Like I said, yours might be different, when you click your user name, the gnome login UI has the option handle at the bottom centre of the screen, click it and choose.
Saw it now. Thanks.
No worries 
I switched to KDE and back to GNOME.
Now I cannot start Yast any more.
In fact all applications that ask for the root password don’t start any more. I checked the Yast log files (/var/log/YaST) but they are not even touched (i.e. Yast doesn’t even start).
I can open the Control Centre but when I click on a module that requires superuser privileges (like User and Group Management) it justs asks for the password and then does nothing. Same for starting Yast2 directly and same for any other module or application that runs with su privileges.
How did this happen and what can I do to fix it?
Switching between the two should cause no problem, I have been doing it without issue.
Maybe you should explain exactly what you have changed.
Try rebooting too.
That’s the point. I haven’t changed anything except the settings for auto-login. Then I logged into KDE and the two other GUIs, changed the background images where possible, logged out again and logged back into GNOME.
When I tried to change the auto-login settings back I noticed that Yast2 wouldn’t start any more.
Did you try rebooting?
Please post result of
zypper lr -d
e?1034h# | Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | Priority | Type | URI | Service
--+-----------------------+---------------------------+---------+---------+----------+--------+--------------------------------------------------------------+--------
1 | mono-stable | mono-stable | Yes | No | 99 | rpm-md | http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/download-stable/openSUSE_11.1 |
2 | openSUSE-11.1-Updates | openSUSE-11.1-Updates | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.1 |
3 | openSUSE_11.1-0 | openSUSE 11.1-0 | Yes | No | 100 | yast2 | dvd:/// |
4 | repo | Main Repository (NON-OSS) | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/non-oss/ |
5 | repo_1 | Main Repository (OSS) | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/ |
I also rebooted a few times.
(I attract chaos. What also happened was that one of the reboots resulted in a black screen and I had to reset the computer because no keys worked, couldn’t switch to virtual ttys. I booted from the CD and ran the repairs which found file system errors and fixed them. Now I am back to GNOME but Yast2 won’t start as before.)
Can you become su in a terminal
then try doing
zypper up
Also IIRC those priority settings are not correct for 11.1
Defaults were
oss and non-oss at 120
updates at 20
You can modify with zypper if su is working
Zypper/Usage/11.1 - openSUSE
I did the zypper up thing. I downloaded lots of files and apparently installed them.
I ended up with the same symptoms as before.
Not sure I want to play with those settings. I modified them for a reason and everything worked with them for a year.
I take it you rebooted after the update?
If I had to use 11.1 I would be using Gnome. You can still use kde apps in gnome.
Yes, I rebooted.
The availability of KDE apps is not really the problem any more. I just want Yast to work again.
I just uninstalled and re-installed GNOME but that hasn’t resolved the issue either.
When I start Yast2 from a terminal using su I get this error in an alert box:
An error occurred while loading or saving configuration information for y2controlcenter-gnome. Some of your configuration settings may not work properly.
Pressing “Details” gives me this:
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
Now I cannot start GUI apps any more. I get this error:
“Details: Failed to change to directory ‘$HOME’ (No such file or directory)”
It appears in an alert box when I tried to start OpenOffice.org.
I think my system is falling apart.