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snvv
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Post subject: Various windows based problems
 Posted: 19.07.2015, 19:17
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Joined: 2010-09-13
Posts: 331
Status: Offline
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After today DU I have very strange KDE behaviour.
When I open an application it gets maximized and I can not even minimize it. Only one application can be active at a moment.
Also, Alt-tab does not work and when I open chromium I can see a window to input the password but it does not accept any key.
I have, actually, no idea what is going on or how might solve the problems. Any idea will be appreciated.
EDIT.
One problem is that pager is messed up. It could not load module for virtual desktops. |
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vinur
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Post subject: RE: Various windows based problems
Posted: 20.07.2015, 00:12
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Joined: 2010-09-11
Posts: 83
Location: Lake Oswego
Status: Offline
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Hello snvv,
I have the same issue, but with variations,
all windows will open about halfway.
one application at a time.
the file manager KDE is missing quit buttons - menue can close by adding a quit button manually.
many functions malfunction.
copy and paste across applications marginal at best or non existent.
I can use the computer some but that is just because i am tenacious and try almost anything, to do as workarounds.
This is pretty bad.
I hope it is just a migration to KDE 5 type problem as I can be patient for a while but it is bad. I have a back up computer that must not be upgraded untill this is resolved.
It came from a casual D-U as I saw no problems listed.
So here is a warning - to all. A D-U can mess up the KDE system and I see no general fix as yet. It affects all applications running.
even here I am partially functional.
Add edit:
No bookmarks in Iceweasel
no spell checking anywere.
no top bar functionality.
I did not think of it as i get to this site as my custom home page has a deliberate link on the webpage built in but there is no tab capability as I see.
Generally speaking many people will just have no way to get around if they never made a custom homepage with all of their popular links built into it... I think.
Use great caution on Your Upgrade Distrabution desires. |
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vinur
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Post subject: RE: Various windows based problems
Posted: 20.07.2015, 03:26
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Joined: 2010-09-11
Posts: 83
Location: Lake Oswego
Status: Offline
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Greetings all,
I took a great chance in this time of KDE transitions. I do not recommend doing it.
I am still here as it were but the risk is great. KDE is changing, not for the better yet. and the new system is only semi functional.
Although I have restored my system to button functionality running KDE 5.x -mix of 5. and 4.14
It is nuts. I took a leap of faith and installed the new Plasma desktop - don't do this on any important system to you. I have an intuition of what I can get away with but the risks are very great to your desktop environment – its important to me so I am exercising a great deal of caution, yet I am also stepping out into the void as well. KDE in my circumstance is on an AMD 64 based system and the GUI is not greatly functional yet.
How well or with what reliability is a complete unknown. Sane computer users beware.
I have many years on the ragged bleeding edge of alpha everything. I will report back in a few days if it is truly a successful transition – it actually runs so far.
Just beware it is very different and is very unstable at this time..
If you liked KDE 4.14.2 Do Not upgrade the plasma space to 5.whatever, it is nowhere close to being ready.
What works now from this morning:
The menus are back
The tab switching works.
Select copy and paste works OK across applications
Most of the applications work. Icedove is OK web browser Chromium is OK and so is Iceweasel
Google Earth 7.1 is problematic as usual
Libre office works
Printer works Epson WF 7510 + special Linux drivers believe it or not. For a while there was a repository for it. The repository is gone now of course. But they work
A lot of stuff is working better from catastrophe mode this morning.
But KDE is not ready for prime time and looks really dreadful compared to how it was.
I will work the settings but I think a lot of Children are fixing what works to something less, as usual in the new mobile emphases mess they made of the desktop.
I am not full of total regrets yet but I am leaning that way.
I will work it into something I can live with, but it is ugly today.
Spell-checking restored.
Just beware. |
Last edited by vinur on 20.07.2015, 04:56; edited 1 time in total
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slh
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Post subject: RE: Various windows based problems
Posted: 20.07.2015, 04:30
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Joined: 2010-08-25
Posts: 962
Status: Offline
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| These problems are due to a partial KDE5 (well, technically plasma 5) installation - which easily happens as several package interdependencies of the new KDE aren't quite perfect yet. It should be fixed by dist-upgrading with these refinements to help the package manager finding a good dependency resolution including the missing packages:
Code:
apt update
apt-get dist-upgrade --purge kio-extras+ kde-baseapps+ kio+ kwin-x11+ plasma-desktop+ fonts-oxygen+ kde-config-gtk-style+ kde-config-sddm+ kde-style-oxygen-qt5+ khelpcenter+ khotkeys+ kinfocenter+ kio-extras+ kmenuedit+ kscreen+ ksshaskpass+ ksysguard+ kwrited+ systemsettings+ plasma-workspace+ kde-window-manager- klipper- kactivities+ libkactivities-bin- libkf5config-bin+ libkf5dbusaddons-bin+ libkf5emoticons-bin+ libkf5filemetadata-bin+ libkf5iconthemes-bin+ libkf5kdelibs4support5-bin+ libkf5khtml-bin+ libkf5parts-plugins+ libkf5su-bin+ libkf5wallet-bin+ libkf5xmlgui-bin+ libqt5sql5-sqlite+ kdm- sddm+
Make very sure that you don't run this dist-upgrade under a running KDE- or any kind of X session, but on a plain tty (like tty2) - as X will restart half way into the dist-upgrade (this is strongly recommended for any kind of dist-upgrade anyways, but here it's even more crucial than usual). The "apt-get dist-upgrade" call needs to be in one single line - and trailing +/- signs are important the way they are.
Depending on your installed package set you might need to refine this further.
KDE5/ plasma5 is still 'young' and might have other problems, but this will provide you with a basic(ally) functional plasma5 environment. One known issue to keep in mind is that plasma5 doesn't support 'old-style' (basically anything not provided by KDE5 itself) system-bar notifications, this affects e.g. hplip-gui (if you don't own a HP printer, purge the package).
This special dist-upgrade dance only needs to done once, in order to install the missing packages - afterwards you can dist-upgrade as usual. |
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vinur
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Post subject: RE: Various windows based problems
Posted: 20.07.2015, 09:27
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Joined: 2010-09-11
Posts: 83
Location: Lake Oswego
Status: Offline
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Thank you slh, I will do this properly.
I just got lucky in selecting just enough of the new and eliminating just enough of the old to barely get by with a surviving system. But after a fashion it is far better that the train wreck this morning.
I know the developers work hard at preventing this type of scenario.
Transitions of something so complex as KDE and Linux in general can't be easy.
And I admit to running a lot of extra applications, some of which are not exactly recommended. Or very endorsed. Google Earth being one of them. |
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snvv
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Post subject:
Posted: 20.07.2015, 10:12
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Joined: 2010-09-13
Posts: 331
Status: Offline
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Just take care!!!
After recommended by slh procedure you will be offered the choice to select kdm or sddm windows manager. Choose kdm since sddm brakes the system (does not boot). |
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slh
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Post subject:
Posted: 20.07.2015, 20:15
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Joined: 2010-08-25
Posts: 962
Status: Offline
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| The upgrade hints I gave explicitly remove kdm and replace it with sddm, intentionally. sddm is functional and supported (accordingly you won't be asked to select one display-manager, as only one remains on the system), while kdm is stagnating (no upstream development, no native systemd support). |
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snvv
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Post subject:
Posted: 20.07.2015, 22:04
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Joined: 2010-09-13
Posts: 331
Status: Offline
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I used the commands you suggested. Actually, I copied and pasted the commands in a script file. Then, in init 2 I run the script. However, at some point, I was offered the choice of either KDM or sddm. I selected sdmm and after the reboot and the loading of drivers I had a black screen. I will try after a couple of days the same process to see what is going to happen.
Regards |
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vinur
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Post subject:
Posted: 21.07.2015, 07:49
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Joined: 2010-09-11
Posts: 83
Location: Lake Oswego
Status: Offline
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Greetings all,
Well I am still functional, risks and all.
Stefan, your help is appreciated. Although I must say the experience as I have done it is a very hair raising adventure.
When I log out of the system, I have no way to get to a console mode. I can reboot and get to the log on to sddm KDE plasma.
I can get into Plasma 5. and have a fair amount of flexibility.
Yes it is young 
Now I have had to use synaptic to some degree (ouch) but it has been useful. Using great care I spotted were I was and more or less were I was going.
I took a long look at your list above, and what I already had installed over the last few months.
I opened kword and pasted the contents of your list verbatim
then copied it.
I opened Konsol as just a user then / to see root and then SU to impediment its capability post root password.
Then entered apt update, it took and built the list of repositories.
Then pasted the list you generated above.
Then I pressed the enter button and saw that a good portion was already installed and the list of what to install was a fraction so I said yes and entered that command. Adventures in terror as I waited the outcome. No auto reboot, after installing what was to be installed.
It just sat there, waiting for me to breath.
As I was already running as little as I could in the windows manager, I did a ctrl+alt+delete to reboot the computer, then and there.
Yes, very dangerous. Don't do it, But my system survived.
And I am here writing about it.
I do not know if I can use the log out screen to get the low level tty consol to use apt-get the way we are suppose to yet.
If anybody has any suggestions on how to restore it.
I would gladly get off this cliff hanging story.
But I am still alive here in the land of plasma KDE.
My advise to anyone reading this, don't do what I just did.
Seriously, every system is a little different and your mileage will vary. If I had any way to have done this outside of a x server that I know of, I would not have sweated it so much.
I live on the edge and this was an example of it.
If all of my applications work as they do seem to, I can live thorough the systems maturation. It is my main system, yes I have backups. So calculated risks.
edit - I can find no way to get to a situation of a running system outside of X as yet. reboots take me straight to the logon screen and no way as yet to back out of it outside of a reboot. no init capabilities as I see yet. systmd has its disadvantages. I will look at kernal options as a list is provided. init might be hiding in that. |
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bfree
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Post subject:
Posted: 21.07.2015, 11:10
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Team Member
Joined: 2010-08-26
Posts: 267
Status: Offline
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To get to a terminal outside of X you have a number of choices.
Ctrl+Alt+F1 switches you to the first Virtual Terminal, Ctrl+Alt+F2 the second etc. X will usually be running on the 7th or 8th (Ctrl-Alt-F7).
You can use an xterm/konsole and su (or log in as root in a virtual terminal you get to using the above) to run
Code:
service sddm stop
or
Code:
systemctl isolate multi-user.target
The former works if you replace sddm with kdm or lightdm, the later will work if you are using sddm or lightdm but not kdm.
If you are using sddm or lightdm, not kdm, when booting up, at grub you can edit the kernel command line to add:
Code:
systemd.unit=multi-user.target
and then X will not start (but everything else will e.g. networking unlike the single-user or rescue targets). |
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snvv
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Post subject:
Posted: 21.07.2015, 11:40
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Joined: 2010-09-13
Posts: 331
Status: Offline
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\offtopic
Is there a way to remove complitelly KDE and install mate, cinnamon or xfce?
I suspect we will have a long transition period and I am not sure whether I like the new KDE.
Regards
\end_offtopic |
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vinur
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Post subject:
Posted: 21.07.2015, 20:11
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Joined: 2010-09-11
Posts: 83
Location: Lake Oswego
Status: Offline
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Hello bfree:
"To get to a terminal outside of X you have a number of choices."
-Thank You, I did Ctrl+Alt+F1 and then the rest was fast and easy. Now I know, I will not forget. Its a simple thing.
Hello snvv, I think I understand, I went through this from KDE 3 to KDE 4, which in time became really good.
Now from KDE 4 we go to KDE 5. Change is inevitable, however it is also an observation that in the case of an entire desktop environment... the gestation period for it to become good seems to be about its service life.
After a day with it and the changes to it that let me find usability and a look I can live with. Its not as dreadful as I felt it was going to be. This is after all, the unstable seas of aptosid and with the advantage of the most current comes the powerful currents of change. The other desktop environments are fine but as they evolve, it would be much the same.
They too were new at one time and someone I can think of called them "an unholy mess", if i am not mistaken.
I will stick with the devil I know, Its character is something I am use to.
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finotti
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Post subject: Re: RE: Various windows based problems
Posted: 21.07.2015, 23:26
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Joined: 2010-09-12
Posts: 493
Status: Offline
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slh wrote:
These problems are due to a partial KDE5 (well, technically plasma 5) installation - which easily happens as several package interdependencies of the new KDE aren't quite perfect yet. It should be fixed by dist-upgrading with these refinements to help the package manager finding a good dependency resolution including the missing packages: [snip]
Is it recommended that we DU now (with the tweaks above) or those not in a hurry better wait longer? One of my computers, in particular, is a work daily-driver, and I'd rather not run into trouble with it... (Maybe Debian stable would have been wiser for that, but it is rare to have these problems with aptosid...)
Thanks!
Luis |
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slh
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Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Various windows based problems
Posted: 22.07.2015, 02:02
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Joined: 2010-08-25
Posts: 962
Status: Offline
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It depends…
Updating the rest of your system, while carefully excluding everything remotely KDE related is futile in practice - so that's something you can pretty much forget. Which leaves you effectively in a situation where you can't upgrade your system anymore (hint, security issues - particularly regarding webfacing applications like browsers, media players, etc.), nor install any new packages (as those will start pulling in upgrades as well).
The packaging related bugs of Debian's KDE5 packages will hopefully improve soon, just as bugs are reported and fixed. This will hopefully avoid the special upgrade dance rather sooner than later (making it a straight forward/ normal dist-upgrade without any special handholding). I'd expect this to happen somewhere between days and few weeks.
In other words, doing the upgrade should become easier, but the results between an upgrade done now (with the upgrade hints above) and later, when the package dependencies get fixed in Debian, will be more or less identical (so that's not really a reason to wait).
However KDE5 (plasma5), the upstream codebase, is still rather young and will likely mature at a slower pace (there will be another round of upgrades after gcc5 becomes the default in unstable, likely in early august). Improvements in that regard will happen gradually.
This doesn't imply that KDE5 would be broken as a whole, it is functional and usable, you will get your work done with it as well - but there are more rough corners than usual (plasma5 ignores plasma4's configuration files, so the cosmetic customisations of your desktop (wallpaper, ksplash, etc.) and revert to plasma5's upstream defaults).
If you have important tasks pending (e.g. being on a business trip), avoiding upgrades for a couple of days or weeks should be possible without too many problems, but once you start counting in months (as in >=2) it becomes less and less ideal (at least on a system that's in active use and has both an external attack surface or may need further packages being installable when use cases change).
Another option would be to install another desktop environment in parallel (you can even remove KDE5 alltogether, but that's neither necessary nor really a good idea - after all the amounts of diskspace we're talking about are cheap, compared to the size of other operating systems or your data) - and use that if the need arises. Especially coming from KDE, razorqt is worth looking at, just as XFCE could be (and there are many others as well). Look and feel varies among them, but all are made to get your work done.
Testing the dist-upgrade in a virtual machine (e.g. under kvm) could be one option to test KDE5's current state, this way you will get a first impression without affecting your production system. But especially with desktop environments, you'll only notice the really the real bugs (or find workarounds for problems that appear big at first sight) once you start using them in production (just like upstream and Debian KDE teams need feedback from real users, rather than artificial and superficial first impressions based on "screenshots" (or shallow VM-only testing).
As far as aptosid is concerned, we'll try to override broken packages with fixed versions as necessary - but interfering with a large package transition is another case (technically possible, but very unwise[1], as doing so will always create upgrade issues with Debian[2] - which is a moving base).
--
[1]
--> Fixing leaf packages or obvious bugs with an obvious solution is one aspect - and easy.
--> Interfering with an ongoing and large transition another.
On the one hand, as far as rather basic libraries are concerned, it's very easy to change a library's ABI (so if Debian or upstream would fix the problem differently than we'd do it -and in software development there are always multiple ways of fixing the same problem- anyone messing with these is very likely to introduce dependency issue, which would introduce crashes for packages built against a different library ABI)...
On the other hand KDE consists of almost 400 individual (source-)packages (resulting in more than 2100 binary packages), with very intricate interdependencies between the individual packages. How you split these up is a rather personal matter of preference - especially when you don't strictly stick to very peripherial leaf packages, you will clash with official Debian packages, resulting in file conflicts during future upgrades...
Of course it's still easy to do so and boast about how more modern/ up to date you are - or how many bugs you've clashed. But at the end of the day that doesn't matter when (not if) your system explodes during the next Debian upgrade. Bugs need to be fixed (and reported to~) its source. That's where participation helps most, where one can prove to be a good FOSS citizen ("standing on the shoulders of giants"). While isolated/ individual forking might get you your 15 minutes of fame, but always creates huge problems for everyone involved later on (you'll have upgrade and package dependency issues, you upstream will inevitably get bogus bug reports from your users).
[2]
To quote our mission, "We aim to be 100% compatible with debian sid." At times this may be less popular than shipping the latest and greatest, fresh out of the sweat shop - but it's the only sane option if you want a reliable and stable system for years, which can be upgraded at all times. |
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vinur
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Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Various windows based problems
Posted: 22.07.2015, 07:44
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Joined: 2010-09-11
Posts: 83
Location: Lake Oswego
Status: Offline
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At this time I am feeling a lot more comfortable with the system.
Much of my important functions are OK,
I lost the digital camera USB input capability, but as yet I have not tried to restore that, so I do not know if it is merely an adjustment to reestablish it or is actually gone. Its not critical as I have other aptosid systems untouched for weeks with upgrades and as usual they work fine.
The cosmetics of the system are truly just that, cosmetics.
What is important is it never did lockup or crash.
Following the advice of bfree I now know how to quickly drop out of sddm for upgrades which I did this morning without any issues. The list of the changes recommended by slh are fully implemented,
Verbatim.
This machine I use for my daily work machine carries important function which do work.
The one day were all of this was going on is now past and I can list to some degree what was unaffected.
Sound is still good – I am in the audio products business so high end sound never was a computer issue. The systems sound capabilities with a semi-pro sound card is fine, M-audio
Videos from the internet still work quite well. I run at 1920X1080 full color rendition is fine.
I have a lot of video codecs for all the needs I have all still work,
never lost any thumbnail capabilities.
The printer WF 7510 did not lose its .deb drivers – yes there was a repository specific to this printer.
The KDE file manager is better and never did lose is internal thumbnails for any of the file formats I use and I use a lot, they are OK. The only thing not working that I can see at this time is the search function is not working.
I use a lot of spell checking in various word editors and the only place it is iffy is on some forums online.
I lost the screen saver application. I can get along with out that for now.
The switching pictures I use for the background is OK its still there if not as refined as it was.
Cross application cut and paste work OK – this is written in LibreOffice and pasted here in the field.
Spell checking needs.
Had I had some advanced notice of these issues I might have waited, but I stepped into it and adjusted to the new way with some surprise, that I got over quickly.
The system seems stable enough to just get on with work and so far it is OK.
I will say that the e-mail system for some months was getting really bad with strange fonts showing up in reedits of draft messages – that was cured with what has happened. Reason unknown as that was a formal bug I was aware of and it is gone now. It cured it. That is good. I am using icedove. 37.1.0
info bash right now reads:
michael@Eyland0:~$ infobash -v3
Host/Kernel/OS "Eyland0" running Linux 4.1.0-2.slh.2-aptosid-amd64 x86_64 [ aptosid 2013-01 Ἑσπερίδες - kde-lite - (201305050307) ]
CPU Info 8x AMD FX-8120 Eight-Core 2048 KB cache flags( sse3 ht nx lm svm ) clocked at [ 1400.000 MHz ]
Videocard NVIDIA G86 [GeForce 8500 GT] X.Org 1.17.2 [ 1920x1080@60.00hz ]
Network cards D-Link System Inc DGE-560T PCI Express Gigabit
Processes 183 | Uptime 22:35 | Memory 1369.7/7971.4MB | HDD WDC WD1000DHTZ-0,WDC WD6000HLHX-0,AS2105 Size 1920GB (9%used) | GLX Renderer Gallium 0.4 on NV86 | GLX Version Yes | Client Shell | Infobash v3.49
michael@Eyland0:~$
It seems as though all will be OK and I am no longer worried that I broke something and I can live with what is here with faith it will be as awesome as it has been.
If there is any kind of readout anyone would want of the machine, let me know were it is and I can give it.
All of the functionality of iceweasel was restored after the upgrades as per slh
spell checking on line for some websites is still missing – before all sites were good.
I use bluegriffon 1.7.2 with all of the paid for plug-ins and they are all good.
But I did need to create the link to the desktop minus the icon of the griffon its just a plane link icon but works fine.
Gftp is good.
Alt tab for desktop switching is funky and partially missing. But I can use the mouse to select on the lower desktop panel which is good – some widgets work – the analog clock and date widget work.
Dolphin is good and has more data in it visually but search is not happening yet.
At this time the auto log-out to a log-on screen seems unmodifiable, if I am not using the computer for ten minutes it will log out, my default was to never log out automatically by time.
Upgrading really depends on the level of risk one is tolerant of but as far as I am concerned it is OK and I will just carry on as before. |
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