I just went through and updated from openSUSE 13.1 running Gnome to openSUSE 13.2. The upgrade ran mostly OK and I was greeted with the new Grub screen (which was good… this machine is dual-boot).
When I tried to log in, however, it could not run due to some error and it would kick me back to the splash screen (after a loooooong pause).
I am able to log in using FVWM so I am thinking it is only Gnome that is having problems and not Grub or anything else related to the system.
Step 1: (re)Creating default Gnome config files
If I were to try removing my Gnome configuration files and let the system re-create a base (default) environment, what directories do I need to delete (or rename to something like ‘~/.gnome.bak’ or ‘~/.gnomeX’)? .gnome? .gnome2? .gconf? I’m not sure where are the configuration files that I am looking for.
Step 2: Re-install Gnome shell
IF this does not work, then I am thinking I may need to re-install with the updated Gnome shell. What is the easiest way to force the system to re-install Gnome over whatever is already there, or to remove Gnome and then re-install it? I could use Yast and look at packages, but I also wonder if I can use zypper and what would I need to pass?
If all else fails:
If all else fails, my final response is to do a clean-install. I’d prefer to avoid this only because it also means re-installing all of the packages I added afterwards (Skype, Chrome, Oracle Java, etc.).
If you need any further information I can see about providing it when I get home tonight.
IMO It is just simpler to do a clean install. First off it cleans out all the dust bunnies that have collected. Re install the need software takes less time then running down upgrade problems. I have a short list that I install immediately then as I discover that which I forgot or newly need just install as needed. It’s not like it was Windows and have to re-buy or run down things all over the web. It is all that I need there in the repos. Your mileage may vary
Well getting rid of .gnome, .gnome2 and .gnome2_private did not do anything, it still crashes.
Trying to remove Gnome is a royal pain in the butt because it wants to confirm what to do about a 100 or so packages … one… by… one! Isn’t there a “remove everything” or a “force re-install” option?
I’ve tried “force update” the package but that doesn’t do anything about the dependencies.
It is beginning to look like my only option, other than sitting there and hope that the dependencies screen isn’t just showing me the same packages over and over, is to do a full, clean install! Ugh… that will take a little while.
Also, is it me, or is the DVD too large to put on a 4GB USB?
I was able to install KDE base without any issues last night, and it works like a charm.
I guess I need to find an easy way to remove Gnome from the system, and preferrably do it via the command line because I suspect that something is failing during the uninstall process but it all happens so quick and closes Yast out that I don’t see what is going on.
I’m fairly new here so feel free to ignore me if I’m being silly, but isn’t uninstalling gnome a simple case of going into KDE, Yast, and selecting to view “Patterns” rather than packages? that’ll group all the individual gnome packages into one deselectable tickbox (Unless your Yast issue prevents that too of course)
I don’t (usually) ignore advice as silly. I actually started trying to do it this way either through Yast (IceWM is still accessible) and even vi the command line without logging into any desktop environment (# sudo yast2).
It would either run through quickly and then the window closes, or come up with so many conflicts that I get fed up before going through them all (>100 I think). That’s why I suspect something is not running fully, since Gnome isn’t getting removed and I don’t know why. At least if I have a “#zypper delete” command the output should be captured easily.
I also noticed, while poking around in KDE, that it doesn’t say I have 3D rendering. I don’t know if this is going to be a factor or not, and my battery was dying right at that moment so I couldn’t investigate it further at the time. It also could be the culprit and I am barking up the wrong tree.
Where does it say that?
In KInfocenter? That’s normal, and caused by a change in the kernel. The way it tries to find out which kernel module is used for the graphics doesn’t work any more.
What does “glxinfo | grep render” say? (you might have to install “Mesa-demo-x” first.
Btw, GNOME3’s configuration is stored in ~/.config/, not ~/.gnome or ~/.gnome2/ (that was used by GNOME2 obviously… )
But as a new user didn’t work either, it’s probably not caused by the user’s configuration anyway.
So something else seems to be the problem.
Maybe some mixture of incompatible packages, e.g. an incomplete upgrade, some packages from 13.2 (or even some completely different repo) still installed?
You still haven’t posted your repo list:
zypper lr -d
Otherwise I would take a look into the log. Normally this would be ~/.xsession-errors-:0 (for display :0), but AIUI gdm redirects the messages to /var/log/messages instead.
So maybe try to login into GNOME and then run “tail /var/log/messages” immediately after it fails. Should point to the reason for the crash.
Or try running “gnome” in a terminal window to get the error messages. But I’m not sure whether that would really work, I don’t have GNOME installed here to try.
What YaST are you using btw? The Qt or the GTK version?
If it’s the GTK version, the crashes could of course be related to the GNOME crash. But then the GTK version is known to be buggy, that’s why it is removed from the default patterns in 13.2, i.e. it’s not installed by default.
Use YaST Qt instead.
kdesu /sbin/yast2 --qt
You maybe have to install libyui-qt-pkg6 and yast2-control-center-qt first, but then the Qt version should be preferred in KDE anyway, unless it cannot be started.
I’ll give those a try. I see the xsession-errors-:0 log file, but am going to clear it out, try going into Gnome and see what gets in there. That way all the other things I have been doing won’t be muddying up the waters.
I never thought about which version of Yast is used. I’ll try re-installing Gnome from the Qt version of Yast and see if that makes a difference.
After I cleared out the original .xsession-errors-:0 and went to try running Gnome again, the file shows
/etc/X11/xim: line 107: gsettings: No such file or directory
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.common: line 185: xrdb: No such file or directory
grep: /home/drew/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf: No such file or directory
Ok, now this is strange.Looking through /var/log/messages while some of the stuff looks “normal”, it suddenly gets to showing a whole lot of text. It seems as if it is outputting the contents of a PDF file (may car’s owner manual) text!
2014-11-09T22:58:36.857684-05:00 linux-x6pd gnome-session[5283]: nie:plainTextContent "2008 Saturn AURA Owner Manual
Seats and Restraint Systems ........................... 1-1
Front Seats ............................................... 1-2
Rear Seats
............................................... 1-9
Safety Belts ............................................. 1-11
Child Restraints
....................................... 1-31
Airbag System
......................................... 1-56
Restraint System Check
............................ 1-72
Features and Controls ..................................... 2-1
Keys
........................................................ 2-2
Doors and Locks
....................................... 2-9
Windows ................................................. 2-14
Theft-Deterrent Systems ............................ 2-17
Starting and Operating Your Vehicle
........... 2-20
Mirrors .................................................... 2-36
OnStar ® System
...................................... 2-39
Universal Home Remote System
................ 2-42
Storage Areas
......................................... 2-48
Sunroof
.................................................. 2-49
Instrument Panel ............................................. 3-1
Instrument Panel Overview .......................... 3-4
Climate Controls
...................................... 3-19
Warning Lights, Gages, and Indicators
........ 3-29
Driver Information Center (DIC)
.................. 3-45
Audio System(s) ....................................... 3-57
M
Driving Your Vehicle ....................................... 4-1
Your Driving, the Road, and the Vehicle
....... 4-2
Towing
................................................... 4-30
Service and Appearance Care .......................... 5-1
Service ..................................................... 5-3
Fuel ......................................................... 5-5
Checking Things Under the Hood
............... 5-12
Headlamp Aiming ..................................... 5-47
Bulb
and this goes on through the entire document. It’s going to take me a bit to go through this log file and try to find anything useful in it.
I think “gsettings” is quite important for GNOME.
Check that you have glib2-tools installed (you should), and (re-)install it in any case.
If I try to remove it here, the whole GNOME gets uninstalled.
zypper in -f glib2-tools
/usr/bin/xrdb is quite important too I think, at least it’s required by xorg-x11-essentials, xinit and xdm.
So reinstall “xrdb” as well.
You probably have some more files missing?
Maybe try to run “rpm -Va” to verify all installed packages, but this might take long and produce quite a lot of irrelevant output.
You might post it to http://susepaste.org though if you want, I’ll have a look at it.
No idea about the /var/log/messages stuff you posted, but I don’t think exactly that is related to GNOME not starting.
But all text output from any application you run in the graphical session goes to /var/log/messages if you use GDM.
Rather search for messages like “No such file or directory” or “cannot load”, I’d say.
YES. It cannot be saved to a 4BG DVD or 4GB USB it is about 4.,569088 KB. I normally save downloaded ISO as raw ISO to DVD then remove from machine after burning so I have both source ISO and DVD, but now SUSE has since13.0 been too big!
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