Fresh install from firestarter: Problems with incomplete win

[mylo]

Hi all,

I made an install of firestarter, however the system cannot be used. I made a d-u after (around 800 packs), however everything went smooth. The windows appear incomplete, buttons and sections of the windows appear when hoovering with the mouse. The application launcher is missing (I will try zo post a snapshot if I can). What can aI do besides another install?

[absolut]

What can aI do besides another install?

provide more info... you did not mention what window manager you are using...

if it is kde, try this : log out, move ~/.kde to ¸/.kde_bak and log in again

[spacepenguin]

If it's KDE try to use another window decoration than oxygen and try to disable the kwin effects.

[der_bud]

mylo, someone in chat had exactly these symptoms several days ago on irc, fresh install of firestarter + big DU = same kde symptoms like you described.

In the end it was problems with correct nvidia driver and kernel-modules surviving that big dist-upgrade, because driver-names changed several times since firestarter-release.

As I have no nvidia myself I do not remember the exact solution, but it was similar to what is written for nvidia in the siduction-manual, but kind of translating the driver names from manual to the names they really have today, having the correct sources, not forgetting to unload the "faulty" module and so on.

[michaa7]

If this is true (I don't doubt it) I would

- save away /var/cache/apt/archives to a seperate partition (to avoid d/l 700 mb again)
- reinstall firestarter (I would *not* keep an installation which was messed up in its early hours of existence)
- after reinstall as the first action: mount <seperate archives partition) /var/cache/apt/archives
- d-u (including update to the newest kernel!)
- and only then I would install nividia (to avoid this nameing conflicts)
(I'd recommend to keep this seperate archives partition and mount it by making an appropriate entry in /etc/fstab)

[mylo]

I did a reinstall, still no d-u'ing, everything seems to be proper.
How do i find out, what graphics driver has beeninstalled (nvidia 304 or 325 or nouveau)?

EDIT: dpkg -l shows no nvidia or nouveau.

So do I first d-u and then install 304-legaxy-xx and vdpau?
Or is an other sequence necessary?

[dibl]

Yes, d-u first before you do anything with video drivers.

Are you sure you don't have the xserver-xorg-video-nouveau driver installed?

Do:

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lspci | grep VGA

This will show the PCI bus address, for example it could be 05:00.0

Take the PCI bus address of your card, and put it in this command:

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lspci -ks 05:00.0 | grep Kernel

the output will tell the driver in use.  (One of the bash / awk / sed gurus could make a script out of that ....).

[absolut]

1) what window manager are you using?
2) please paste /var/log/Xorg.0.log
3) please paste output of dpkg -l | grep xserver
4) i'd first dist-upgrade, then install nvidia, then reboot

EDIT: fast hack of the things above...

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lspci -ks $(lspci | awk '/VGA/ {print $1}') | grep Kernel

[dibl]

EDIT: fast hack of the things above...

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lspci -ks $(lspci | awk '/VGA/ {print $1}') | grep Kernel

Nice -- I can only dream of such skills!  

Thanks absolut!

[mylo]

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# lspci -ks 01:00.0 | grep Kernel
       Kernel driver in use: nouveau

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dpkg -l | grep xserver
ii  x11-xserver-utils                                    7.7~3                               amd64        X server utilities
ii  xserver-common                                       2:1.12.4-6                          all          common files used by various X servers
ii  xserver-xorg                                         1:7.7+3                             amd64        X.Org X server
ii  xserver-xorg-core                                    2:1.12.4-6                          amd64        Xorg X server - core server
ii  xserver-xorg-input-all                               1:7.7+3                             amd64        X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
ii  xserver-xorg-input-evdev                             1:2.7.0-1+b1                        amd64        X.Org X server -- evdev input driver
ii  xserver-xorg-input-mouse                             1:1.7.2-3                           amd64        X.Org X server -- mouse input driver
ii  xserver-xorg-input-synaptics                         1.6.2-2                             amd64        Synaptics TouchPad driver for X.Org server
ii  xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse                           1:12.9.0-1                          amd64        X.Org X server -- VMMouse input driver to use with VMWare
ii  xserver-xorg-video-ati                               1:6.14.4-8                          amd64        X.Org X server -- AMD/ATI display driver wrapper
ii  xserver-xorg-video-fbdev                             1:0.4.2-4+b3                        amd64        X.Org X server -- fbdev display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-intel                             2:2.19.0-6                          amd64        X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-mach64                            6.9.1-2                             amd64        X.Org X server -- ATI Mach64 display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-mga                               1:1.5.0-3                           amd64        X.Org X server -- MGA display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-nouveau                           1:1.0.1-5                           amd64        X.Org X server -- Nouveau display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-qxl                               0.0.17-2+b1                         amd64        X.Org X server -- QXL display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-r128                              6.8.2-1                             amd64        X.Org X server -- ATI r128 display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-radeon                            1:6.14.4-8                          amd64        X.Org X server -- AMD/ATI Radeon display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-vesa                              1:2.3.1-1+b1                        amd64        X.Org X server -- VESA display driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-vmware                            1:12.0.2-1+b1                       amd64        X.Org X server -- VMware display driver


[mylo]

1) what window manager are you using?
2) please paste /var/log/Xorg.0.log
3) please paste output of dpkg -l | grep xserver
4) i'd first dist-upgrade, then install nvidia, then reboot

EDIT: fast hack of the things above...

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lspci -ks $(lspci | awk '/VGA/ {print $1}') | grep Kernel

1) KDE
3) see below
2) http://paste.siduction.org/20130922202121

[absolut]

nouveau is being loaded, it seems...

but the following line

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[   481.024] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.9-3.towo-siduction-amd64 root=UUID=dc98e50b-f960-4ce9-9ec4-866fef79c8bf ro quiet 3 says that you do not boot into graphical environment, only into init 3... why?

at this point in time, i would go for a dist-upgrade and see what happens... then you can think about nvidia-glx driver

[mylo]

Ok, I go for the d-u on this install again and then I follow:

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apt-get install policy nvidia-legacy-304xx-driver  apt-cache policy nvidia-vdpau-driver

as per http://forum.siduction.org/index.php?topic=3801&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Is that ok?

[mylo]

Wow the firestarter really has an own life as a vulcano. I am deeply impressed. I set the terminal to an unlimited no. of lines in order to be able to scroll back and review the d-u -s request.

Suddenly a mixture of init 5 and 3 appears (mouse indicator stays visible, while texe mode talks abou nouveau...

[absolut]

random guess: maybe it is the xserver-xorg transition kicking our butts here?