[arch-general] GDM/Lightdm and/or Gnome will not start

[Alan E. Davis via arch-general]

I'll try to give some background, because I do not have a really good idea
why this is happening.

It seemed to start when I tried to install Adobe-Digital-Editions (ADE), so
I could read an ebook borrowed from the local public library. I installed
wine, and attempted to install ADE. At the end of the install process, the
console went into a kind of loop, with the same message repeated over and
over in rapid succession. (I did not have the presence of mind to try to
record this message).

This through my session into a dysfunctional state, so I rebooted. Or
restarted the display manager, I don't remember. Neither GDM nor Lightdm
have started again, in a number of days. I was able to start i3 and xfce4,
through startx with correct lines in .xinitrc.

I uninstalled wine and ADE, then recently tried again to reinstall, with
the thought this experience may have been a fluke. The same exact message
popped up when executing "wine install.exe".

This system is in pretty decent shape. It's been up running for many
months, with quite a number of packages from the pacman distros as well as
AUR; I have never had a serious problem that I could not easily figure
out. Arch Linux has become my goto distro, as it just works, and
maintainance is not a hugely time consuming or hit and miss affair as has
been my experience with Gentoo.

I have now installed manjaro and redcore, on the same laptop. I have
removed Fedora 26, which turned quirky after a few weeks (which I installed
so I would be able to advise a friend in the case of any troubles).
Manjaro is easy to install; it's nice to be able to use AUR, but even if I
avoid any wrinkles, it will take days to get this installation into shape.

I come to you hoping for some light to be shed on this problem. At the
bare minimum I would like to generate a list of installed packages of all
kinds (AUR and pacman). I truly hope, however, to find the problem, and
fix it. I can copy the files in my home directory, and copy them over to a
new installation. d

Does this description make any sense to someone?

Thank you for reading this far.

Alan Davis
--
[Fill in the blanks]

The use of corrupt manipulations and blatant rhetorical ploys ...---
outright lying, flagwaving, personal attacks, setting up phony
alternatives, misdirection, jargon-mongering, evading key issues, feigning
disinterested objectivity, willful misunderstanding of other points of
view---suggests that ... lacks both credibility and evidence.

---- Edward Tufte (in context of making presentations)

[Ralf Mardorf]

Post by Alan E. Davis via arch-general
It seemed to start when I tried to install Adobe-Digital-Editions
(ADE), so I could read an ebook borrowed from the local public
library. I installed wine, and attempted to install ADE. At the end
of the install process, the console went into a kind of loop, with the
same message repeated over and over in rapid succession. (I did not
have the presence of mind to try to record this message).
This through my session into a dysfunctional state, so I rebooted. Or
restarted the display manager, I don't remember. Neither GDM nor
Lightdm have started again, in a number of days. I was able to start
i3 and xfce4, through startx with correct lines in .xinitrc.
I uninstalled wine and ADE, then recently tried again to reinstall,
with the thought this experience may have been a fluke. The same
exact message popped up when executing "wine install.exe".
[snip]
I have now installed manjaro and redcore, on the same laptop.
[snip]

Actually you don't have installed Arch Linux?

Post by Alan E. Davis via arch-general
Does this description make any sense to someone?

No, it doesn't make sense to me. At least consider to post this "exact
message". However, there's no plausible reason that installing
something odd by wine, could affect your Linux install.

Perhaps Manjaro is broken. Consider to install Arch Linux.

[Alan E. Davis via arch-general]

To clarify, I have been running the same Arch Linux installation for many
months, without a hitch. Until this event. The exact message since that
time has been (on a gray screen) "Oh no! Something has gone wrong. A
problem has occurred and the system can't recover. Please log out and try
again." I have seen other reports online of this message, but for various
purported root causes.

I will reinstall Arch Linux, no doubt, unless I can fix this.

Thank you,

Alan

Post by Ralf Mardorf

Post by Alan E. Davis via arch-general
It seemed to start when I tried to install Adobe-Digital-Editions
(ADE), so I could read an ebook borrowed from the local public
library. I installed wine, and attempted to install ADE. At the end
of the install process, the console went into a kind of loop, with the
same message repeated over and over in rapid succession. (I did not
have the presence of mind to try to record this message).
This through my session into a dysfunctional state, so I rebooted. Or
restarted the display manager, I don't remember. Neither GDM nor
Lightdm have started again, in a number of days. I was able to start
i3 and xfce4, through startx with correct lines in .xinitrc.
I uninstalled wine and ADE, then recently tried again to reinstall,
with the thought this experience may have been a fluke. The same
exact message popped up when executing "wine install.exe".
[snip]
I have now installed manjaro and redcore, on the same laptop.
[snip]

Actually you don't have installed Arch Linux?

Post by Alan E. Davis via arch-general
Does this description make any sense to someone?

No, it doesn't make sense to me. At least consider to post this "exact
message". However, there's no plausible reason that installing
something odd by wine, could affect your Linux install.
Perhaps Manjaro is broken. Consider to install Arch Linux.

--
[Fill in the blanks]

The use of corrupt manipulations and blatant rhetorical ploys ...---
outright lying, flagwaving, personal attacks, setting up phony
alternatives, misdirection, jargon-mongering, evading key issues, feigning
disinterested objectivity, willful misunderstanding of other points of
view---suggests that ... lacks both credibility and evidence.

---- Edward Tufte (in context of making presentations)

[Guus Snijders via arch-general]

Op 26 nov. 2017 10:52 schreef "Alan E. Davis via arch-general" <
arch-***@archlinux.org>:

To clarify, I have been running the same Arch Linux installation for many
months, without a hitch. Until this event. [...]

I will reinstall Arch Linux, no doubt, unless I can fix this.


A quicker way may be to try another user first.

My best guesses; you use some desktop environment and it has included
wine's .desktop files and made at least one of them default for $action.

So at some point, you ask your DE to execute $action;
Let's say you open a JPEG file in a filemanager. The file manager looks up
the default program, finds that it is wine related and executes the
corresponding command. That program crashes for whatever reason, making it
look like the entire system is broken (which it isn't necessarily).

So, will an mkfs, followed by a fresh Arch install fix the problem?
Probably, until you repeat the same steps, ending up in the same
situation...

An easier approach may be to create a new user, log in with that and repeat
the action (in the example above, opening a JPEG). Same error? Then it's
something system wide. No error? Then the problem hides in the homedir of
the first user.


Though, on second thought; the entire problem could be just ADE ;).
If the problem is that it auto-starts on logon or whatever, try renaming
the wine directory (~/.wine) first.
That's just about comparable to reinstalling Windows...

Where it comes to ADE: Can't help there, i'm afraid. I limit my collection
to drm-free materials (organised with Calibre).


Ps
I often used $WINEPREFIX to separate Windows programs from one another.

Mvg, Guus Snijders

[Ralf Mardorf]

Post by Guus Snijders via arch-general
Though, on second thought; the entire problem could be just ADE ;).
If the problem is that it auto-starts on logon or whatever, try
renaming the wine directory (~/.wine) first.
That's just about comparable to reinstalling Windows...

For troubleshooting this would be a good thing to do. I doubt that
something installed by wine does affect the Linux display manager, but
it doesn't harm to (re)move wine.

Post by Guus Snijders via arch-general
Where it comes to ADE: Can't help there, i'm afraid. I limit my
collection to drm-free materials (organised with Calibre).

It doesn't help the OP, but it's the same for me, I reject DRM
completely, resp. I'm not willing to get an Adobe account, even while I
got several meta-thingys for books I wish to own, for free as in beer.
If people want to donate a book I like, they are free to donate a
_book_ (made of paper) instead of a meta-file that requires to sign a
contract with the devil.

The public library of my hometown at best is useful for interlending
from neighbour town's university libraries, but this usually doesn't
work and if it should work, the time you could read the book is
ridiculous short, let alone that the costs for my hometown's public
library is exorbitant high.

Culture in Germany isn't for averaged working people who make a living
from wage floor, that's why I'm in favour of the Guerilla Open Access
Manifesto:
https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt

Regards,
Ralf

[Guus Snijders via arch-general]

Op 26 nov. 2017 13:15 schreef "Guus Snijders" <***@gmail.com>:

Op 26 nov. 2017 10:52 schreef "Alan E. Davis via arch-general" <
arch-***@archlinux.org>:

To clarify, I have been running the same Arch Linux installation for many
months, without a hitch. Until this event. [...]


I will reinstall Arch Linux, no doubt, unless I can fix this.


A quicker way may be to try another user first.

My best guesses; you use some desktop environment and it


[...]
If the problem is that it auto-starts on logon or whatever, try renaming
the wine directory (~/.wine) first.


My apologies; while I was typing the initial response, I failed to take the
subject into account.
Though my main points stay, the first troubleshooting steps are easy;
- log in (on a console, not X) as your "normal" user and rename the wine
directory in $HOME.
- then login in Gnome and see if the error still appears

If the error is gone, it was something with wine (though I can't see any
reason for autostarting wine), and you can work from there.

If the error remains, try another user. If that works, it's something in
the gnome config of user 1.



Mvg, Guus Snijders

[Ralf Mardorf]

though I can't see any reason for autostarting wine

So your advice to create another user account seems to be more promising
for troubleshooting.

[Alan E. Davis via arch-general]

Thank you for the tips.

I am able to run either i3 or xfce4 through startx. Not gnome. GDM will
not work. I have made another account. I cannot start GDM as root, nor
run Gnome through startx/.xinitrc, as root. For now, I am abandoning my
experiment with Gnome on this machine. I will also try cinnamon or mate,
perhaps enlightenment, and check where that ends up. I wonder whether it's
related to Wayland, which I don't understand. The inability to boot up a
DM is a concern. Thank you for your thoughts. You got me to thinking
about my commitment to Free Software. I will re-double my vigilance
against dependence on non-free infrastructure of any kind.

[The following is a probably excessive personal account of my problems and
experiences with Non-Free vs Free Software. I hope they don't amount to
excuse-making for my slide down the slippery slope. I apologize for this
lengthy read.]

I laud your commitment to freedom. As a high school science teacher, it
broke my heart to see that students would be deprived of (what I felt were)
important online/digital learning opportunities, because they only ran,
mainly, on Windoze, albeit many were available for the apple walled garden
as well. I did not give up, and found they were able to run some of them,
by various tricks. Printers could be used with workarounds, albeit, with
my unsophisticated skills, not to their full capacity---even when I had
paid the full price. My colleagues derided my stubborn determination to
use GNU/Linux, when Windoze was purchased for us all through government
funds. I worked in an isolated small district, where the powers that be,
the administrators, believed the received wisdom that anything free must be
deficient. (I was forced to install Windoze on Virtual Box to report
grades.)

Most of the computers I have owned had graphics cards and network adapters
with only proprietary drivers, or for which I greedily refused to use free
drivers because i wanted to have the most computing power I could. I admit
that I have followed the path of least resistance, and often used non-free
drivers. I talked the talk, but did not always walk the walk. Even now, I
have recently built a machine with an Nvidia graphics card, and have been
using proprietary drives, for the free ones did not work as well. Truth
be told, I did not understand the nuances of the distinction, or which
cards were better using free drivers, although I had researched this to
some extent.

I will consider using Parabola GNU/Linux, or Trisquel. In fact, I moved
from Slackware to Debian, not only because of the wonderful packaging
system, but also because of the association with the FSF. When Ubuntu and
live CDs came around, it was easy to make that decision, and I was actually
able to give a talk at which several other teachers installed Ubuntu on
their school district-provided laptops.

About two years ago, I was hired for a new job. I went over to the dark
side about 2 years ago, and purchased a high end Mac, when I learned that I
would be forced to use an extremely slow mac book for all school related
computer work. The ease of inter-operability was amazing. Emacs was
actually on the system---something that is not true of any GNU/Linux distro
I know about! I could install my important GNU/Linux tools, but the line
was blurred: maintenance was a gordion knot, and the quality of the
hardware was shaky. The Operating System was fancy, but was engineered to
prevent sharing. I installed Arch Linux, but eventually I built a much
better machine to run GNU/Linux, and gave it to my wife.

Adobe is a bad word. ADE is an grab for the soul of the digital library.
I will take your remarks under advisement. It often seems that true
Freedom is not as important to Americans anymore.

I am moved by your remarkable statements. I will make a new effort to
divest myself of DRM laden materials and proprietary software. I cannot
afford to buy a different video card or wifi-adapter, or, worse, a
different laptop.

Thank you to the developers of Arch Linux. This distribution is leaps and
bounds ahead of any other distro I have used. That is, while isolated bits
of some other distributions are better, Arch Linux's stability and breadth
of scope is unrivaled.

Alan Davis

Post by Ralf Mardorf

though I can't see any reason for autostarting wine

So your advice to create another user account seems to be more promising
for troubleshooting.
--
$ pacman -Q linux{,-rt{,-cornflower,-pussytoes}}|awk '{print $2}'
4.14-2
4.13.13_rt5-1
4.11.12_rt16-1
4.14_rt1-1

--
[Fill in the blanks]

The use of corrupt manipulations and blatant rhetorical ploys ...---
outright lying, flagwaving, personal attacks, setting up phony
alternatives, misdirection, jargon-mongering, evading key issues, feigning
disinterested objectivity, willful misunderstanding of other points of
view---suggests that ... lacks both credibility and evidence.

---- Edward Tufte (in context of making presentations)

[Eli Schwartz via arch-general]

Post by Alan E. Davis via arch-general
Thank you for the tips.
I am able to run either i3 or xfce4 through startx. Not gnome. GDM will
not work. I have made another account. I cannot start GDM as root, nor
run Gnome through startx/.xinitrc, as root. For now, I am abandoning my
experiment with Gnome on this machine. I will also try cinnamon or mate,
perhaps enlightenment, and check where that ends up. I wonder whether it's
related to Wayland, which I don't understand. The inability to boot up a
DM is a concern. Thank you for your thoughts. You got me to thinking
about my commitment to Free Software. I will re-double my vigilance
against dependence on non-free infrastructure of any kind.
[The following is a probably excessive personal account of my problems and
experiences with Non-Free vs Free Software. I hope they don't amount to
excuse-making for my slide down the slippery slope. I apologize for this
lengthy read.]

[...]

FWIW, the last time I tried running ADE through wine it worked
flawlessly. Although that was a while ago as I try to avoid Adobe
products when possible (at least Amazon manages to be user-friendly
while aiding and abetting the industry standard Digital Restrictions
Management ;)).

But it is worth noting that you should always use the earlier ADE
releases, as ADE 3 and on allow vendors to enable even more
highly-restricted-than-before DRM schemes and incidentally break E-Ink
device compatibility in the process (which is quite sad even for their
perspective).

ADE 1.7 has always worked quite well in wine, and is available via
winetricks.