Version: (using KDE 4.2.2) OS: Linux Installed from: SuSE RPMs Story in short: - installed opensuse-11.1 (defaults to kde-4.1.3). All ok. - used opensuse's one-click-install to upgrade to kde-4.2.2 because of severe instabilities in 4.1.3 - never got the desktop working again, xserver crashes. - repeated everything, working fine with 4.1.3, never worked again with 4.2.2 - assumed bug in either radeonhd-driver or xserver and opened bug in bugs.freedesktop.org, bug no.21423. - got good support from the maintainers there, here is the latest anwer from mhopf@suse.de: --- Comment #13 from Matthias Hopf <mhopf@suse.de> 2009-05-06 03:04:33 PST --- As I assumed - this is presumably not a radeonhd issue, but a combination of KDE trying to use composite (probably using OpenGL), the logic of detecting whether 3D acceleration is available being broken (as Mesa now returns Direct Rendering: yes even for software rasterization), and the GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap being broken in the software rasterizer case. An easy workaround would be - AFAIR - to disable the Composite extension in the Xserver: Add Option "Composite" "off" in the "Extensions" section of your xorg.conf. If that doesn't help a KDE guru should help you how to switch of compositing by editing a KDE config file. -- Configure bugmail: http://bugs.freedesktop.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You reported the bug. - the workaround did not change anything, so i ask for help here now. - for the full story, please refer to bugs.freedesktop.org bug# 21423. - architecture is x86-64, engine is intel quad-core. - kept installation current by daily issuing 'sudo zypper update'. This includes KDE-4.2.2 updates. - same installation process worked and still works fine on a VAJO notebook with Intel graphics. KDE-4.2.2 runs fine there with some minor but not severe problems. Thanks for all and any help. I will be out of town starting tomorrow morning till May-18th. During this time, i will gladly answer questions but i am unable to checkout things in this period. thx, Peter
The analysis by Matthias Hopf seems to be wrong. KWin detects if the Software Renderer is used and in that case Compositing does not get enabled. If X crashes, it's X and not kwin's fault. But if you really think that Compositing might be the fault you can explicitly disable it in ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc section Compositing by setting Enabled to false.
(In reply to comment #1) > The analysis by Matthias Hopf seems to be wrong. KWin detects if the Software > Renderer is used and in that case Compositing does not get enabled. > > If X crashes, it's X and not kwin's fault. But if you really think that > Compositing might be the fault you can explicitly disable it in > ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc section Compositing by setting Enabled to false. Maybe the term 'crash' is wrong. X ends up with a white screen and a cursor-cross in the middle movable with the mouse. So, it's not really a crash but a screen which allows no inputs at all. I have to kill the xserver to get back to the command line to do anything. Which kwinrc do you mean, the one in ~/kde... or in ~/kde4... both contain a slightly different kwinrc, but none has a 'Compositing' section. Both contain only a [sVersion] and a [Desktops] section showing my desktop-names. The .kde4.version shows the 6 desktop-names i defined while kde-4.1.3 was running. Peter
(In reply to comment #2) > Maybe the term 'crash' is wrong. X ends up with a white screen and a > cursor-cross in the middle movable with the mouse. So, it's not really a crash > but a screen which allows no inputs at all. I have to kill the xserver to get > back to the command line to do anything. That looks more like KDE does not get started at all. Please have a look into the corresponding log files (x, kdm, etc.). > Which kwinrc do you mean, the one in ~/kde... or in ~/kde4... > both contain a slightly different kwinrc, but none has a 'Compositing' section. Sorry I have no idea what openSUSE is using.
afaik ~/.kde4, but you could just make a [Compositing] Enabled=false section in either. about kwin/compositing: unlikely if you really toggled Compo Option "Composite" "off" in xorg.conf (but afair it's more like "enable"/"disable"?) for testing KDE/KWin on this: start the failsafe session (you get nothing but an xterm) hover the xterm (get's the focus) enter "kwin" (in case kde3 kwin starts up because you've kde3 as well, /usr/bin/kwin should be the proper one, i think, as kde3 resides in /opt/kde3) see what happens...
(In reply to comment #4) > afaik ~/.kde4, but you could just make a > > [Compositing] > Enabled=false > > section in either. > > about kwin/compositing: > unlikely if you really toggled Compo > Option "Composite" "off" > in xorg.conf (but afair it's more like "enable"/"disable"?) > > for testing KDE/KWin on this: > start the failsafe session (you get nothing but an xterm) > hover the xterm (get's the focus) > enter "kwin" > (in case kde3 kwin starts up because you've kde3 as well, /usr/bin/kwin should > be the proper one, i think, as kde3 resides in /opt/kde3) > see what happens... Did kwin from from xterm and got very odd results. It seems that i have a strange mixture of kde3 and kde4 in the kde4-path, e.g /usr/bin/startkde tries to start kde3 in kde4 environment. Must stop now with analysis, because i have to leave soon for 10 days. Will get back to the problem after may-18th. Thanks so far, peter.
Peter: any news on this issue? Did you get the KDE3/4 confusion in the path sorted out?
(In reply to comment #6) > Peter: any news on this issue? Did you get the KDE3/4 confusion in the path > sorted out? Sorry for the delayed answer, i was out of town 'til May-20, and then reconstruction works in the neighbourhood broke my internet for almost two weeks. Ok, i did a complete new install of OpenSuSE-11.1 with new-formatted partitions. Result was as before, worked fine with KDE-4.1.3, but the desktop was unstable as before, but the radeon driver worked fine over reboots. One- Click-Install of KDE-4.2.2 (most parts were 4.2.3 now) worked ok, and the desktop looked stable, but did not survive the next reboot. I had again a white (gray) screen with nothing on it. Everything was as previously described in this bug. Now i again re-installed everything, however now i installed KDE-3.5.10 and i have a perfect working workstation since. No instabilities and no problems with the Radeon Driver which comes with SuSE-11.1, works perfect since 2 weeks. Today, my DSL came back, and i started an online-update of the machine which ran about one hour, lots of changes had accumulated. System is still working perfect. Regardlessn what people told before, the problem MUST have its source in KDE-4.2.x. I will stick with KDE-3.x for a while, because i bought the quad- core engine on purpose, not just for fun. Thanks to all who tried to help, however i give up. -- Peter Günther
> however i give up. weichei ;-P ok, for one last simple test (if you want to) try to run a kde4 session (the one that leads up to the white screen) - when you are at the white screen, switch over to a vt -> "ctrl+alt+f1" - login - fire an xterm: "xterm --display :0" switch back to X11 (it's likely on f7 -> "ctrl+alt+f7") if there's an xterm (you can hover it and then type into it as long as the cursor is above...) that means there's no problem with neither X11, not KWin, but SuSE somehow broke the startup script, i.e. KDE4 wasn't started at all. you can - if you want - try to start a KDE4 session from within that xterm first get rid of /opt/kde3 PATH=$(echo $PATH | sed -e 's%:/opt/kde3[^:]*:%:%') then "startkde" see what happens (maybe you get some interesting output) (NOTICE: as soon as you close the xterm, X11 probably restarts - whether KDE started or not)