KDE startup much slower than expected
 

Hi everyone.

I am using Mageia, the startup is fast and smooth. It changes over to the login screen for KDE. There are 5 dots, representing the progress of KDE bootup. It runs through the first 4 dots instantly, and then get stuck on the last dot for about 10-15 seconds. I have recently had my distro installed with KDE, where this last dot took only 2-3 seconds. So the 15 seconds is far longer than expected.

I have tried to analyse the problem using bootchart and "systemd-analyse blame" and "time".
I cannot see any obvious sinners in any of them that should cause KDE to take such an extraordinarily long time.
The tools I have been using is good at analysing system time, xorg and general GUI. But it is not particularily strong at analysing KDE for example.

Is there any way to analyse only KDE?

And why would KDE only hang at the very end of its startup, what does it do at that point?
I am using my "user" data from my previous distro installation. But I have also tried with a new fresh users with almost no Plasma applets, which takes a few seconds less, but still a lot of time.

I have also run through my KDM and xsession.error and xorg.0.log to find any obvious reasons, but there seem to be onl insignificant problems there.

Any ideas and tips would be greatly appreciated.

Hi:

I looked in the Mageia forum and didn't see any mention of it-

I have had the same issue with my Unity DE and the dots loading across the screen.
Mine hesitates as yours does and than finally loads.

I think this is where the KDE or any DE loads for that matter and than the OS boots to the full screen.

Please explain a little bit more and clarify "using user data"

Try looking in the message logs or dmesg-

You could try using the LXDE, XFCE or Gnome envirnment instead and see if the problem persists--

These articles might be helpful-
https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewfor...0e34c84b22e78e

KDE Bioscience: a java-based software platform that collects a variety of bioinformatics tools. Not sure if that can be used to analyse KDE or not-
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...32046405000821

http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tools
Examples of /opt/kde3
http://techbase.kde.org/KDE_System_A...stem_Hierarchy

I looked up Plymouth -
It is an intermediate stage that displays a logo--4 dots flash to let you know the system is working and saves the user from seeing any errors occasionally in the background.

It also handels the display settings and this is were the user will find problems (not always related to graphics) I think it is in /dir/var/logs (sysfile)

There is also a stage where Grub and the kernel work together to find the graphics card.
Ensure that you have a driver installed for your card. If your suspicious of your driver try dmesg (demessaging it)

HTH

By this I mean that I am using the same home partition as in a previous installation, and the same username, everything. So the desktop data is old.

But I did try creating a new user.

I can't find anything really telling there. The only problem I find is that pulseaudio tries to start twice. I tried to solve that, but it turned out tricky. But I might give it another go another time, but I am quite sure that is not the problem.

I have a "feeling" that the problem is related to "network-up" somehow, that this is the last thing KDE does before showing the desktop, and that this takes longer than necessary.

I found such a problem with "systemd-analyze blame" and I took the service away from systemd since it is also in the desktop. In systemd it was the one taking by far most time. But when I removed it there was no difference.

My gut feeling still thinks its related to the network somehow, the wireless connection. Not sure though.

I have enlightenment as well, but I never really use it. I am a huge KDE fan.


'

I did find a lot of QT errors at one point, but according to searches on the net, none of them were "bad" errors. And I didn't find any ways to get rid of them either.

Yes. It passed that stage fine. It is the latest stage which is the problem, after KDM takes over from system and X.
My graphics is Intel HD, and it runs quite fine, so that is not the problem. It is in the very last stage. I don't really know what KDE is doing then, but someone said it is doing the plasma applets. But the problem was the same with a new user account, without any plasma applets!

What (if anything)about the wireless are you suspicious of?
Is your connection speed slow?

When it's cold outside (even tho the heat is on) my desktop will hang like yours and I haven't figured out what is going on either. Sorry zeebra:-

It seems to be something to do with how kde creates its config files on first login and it appears that it will only complete that with a ttf- font package installed.
If you're still having trouble try installing ttf-dejavu and kde should complete the login even with all the config files removed.

It's a Arch Linux 2011 thread but it might work--(page 2 post #43)

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=123536

The only other thing I can suggest is as a last resort is to re install your distribution.

I came across this webpage for fixing boot problems.

http://www.tuxradar.com/content/how-...-boot-problems

If it's kernel boot issue's you can run:
http://www.nixtutor.com/linux/genera...ting-in-linux/

Another thing you could try is "Boot Info Script"
It's a bash script which searches all hard drives for into related to booting. Looks good for troubleshooting booting problems.

Save the output and post it so someone can read thru the output and maybe give us a diagnosis.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/