KDE desktop no longer starting

jviezel · 12-12-2011, 10:05 PM

Please help

I upgraded to Fedora 16 from 15 using the "preupgrade" option

Everything seemed to be going fine until I noticed some bizarre behavior with the screen saver. I was running "xscreensaver" the "gleidescope" package. The screen was going blank and exhibiting other strange behavior and ultimately causing my system not to work.

I decided to upgrade my video drivers from Nouveau to the Nvidia drivers for PAE, which seemed to work perfectly.

Tonight, I accepted some package updates using "apper"? and was told I needed to re-log in. I rebooted my system and all of the sudden, KDE is not starting. The submarine graphic is appearing and after I log in, the disk, tools and globe icons are appearing and then the system is halting.

An error is appearing as follows:

"Executable: kded4 PID: 2269 Signal: Segmentation fault (11)"

Please someone help or guide me with advice / instructions on how to determine what is going wrong and how to fix. I'd really hate to have to re-install my OS after finally getting "preupgrade" to work (which I've never been able to do before)

lpwevers · 12-13-2011, 03:43 AM

Hi,

What you can try is to get rid of your current kde4 settings to reset your KDE4 back to default. Just log in to the console and in your home directory do something like

Code:

mv .kde4 .kde4.org

Then try again. This usually fixes KDE issues for me when I'm too lazy to figure out what the real issue was.

jviezel · 12-13-2011, 06:54 AM

Thank you - I can't seem to find a .kde4 file or directory. There is a .kde directory in my home directory. I executed the mv command as you instructed but it didn't seem to do anything. My system is still exhibiting the same behavior.

War3zWad|0 · 12-13-2011, 02:09 PM

you could try changing the Video driver that X11 is using from nvidia back to nouveau or even to vesa.

Code:

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"                                                                                             
    Identifier     "Monitor0"                                                                                 
    VendorName     "Unknown"                                                                                  
    ModelName      "Unknown"                                                                                  
    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0                                                                               
    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0                                                                               
    Option         "DPMS"                                                                                     
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

I personally stopped using Fedora for my Desktop Systems as it seems that every even build has problems with my nVidia Geforce 210 Video card and I have to switch to the vesa drivers for video to work. The easiest way to do this is, just prior to logging use "CNTL + ALT + F2" This should bring up a terminal login screen. Login as root and modify the driver line of

Code:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

to either nouveau or vesa(I would recommend vesa) then use the following command

Code:

 init 3

Then use the following to restart the Display Manager

Code:

init 5

This should reload the x-server with the vesa or nouveau drivers. You have probably found a bug that will most likely be picked up by many before too long.

You may even have to reboot for this change to take effect.

jviezel · 12-13-2011, 08:24 PM

I tried the changes and now I can't even get into a terminal window to recover. I am re-installing everything and will consider switching to a different distro of Linux - I don't seem to have much luck with Fedora.

War3zWad|0 · 12-13-2011, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jviezel

I tried the changes and now I can't even get into a terminal window to recover. I am re-installing everything and will consider switching to a different distro of Linux - I don't seem to have much luck with Fedora.

If you changed the driver to vesa then you would be using the "default" base video driver and you should not have lost video.

The next question is what nVidia Video card are you using?

To recover all you have to do is reboot the machine and at grub add 1 to the very end of the options line. THis should boot you into "Recovery Mode" or Run Level 1. This should allow you to make any changes needed.