On 14/11/21 21:00, Daniel65 wrote:

>
> Almost forty-five years of left-handed, single handed (due to car
> accident), and my typing hasn't gotten much better! ;-)

That phrase
You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

If you put your thumb out of action you pretty much lose the use of the
hand. The (seemingly) simplest activities require a thumb

--
faeychild
Running plasmashell 5.20.4 on 5.10.78-desktop-1.mga8 kernel.
Mageia release 8 (Official) for x86_64 installed via Mageia-8-x86_64-DVD.iso

On 15/11/21 07:17, David W. Hodgins wrote:

> Default for users who haven't specified one is in
> /etc/sysconfig/desktop. I have
> # cat /etc/sysconfig/desktop
> DESKTOP=Plasma
> DISPLAYMANAGER=lightdm
>
> If the DESKTOP is not specified, it's set by the dm.
>
> Per user overrides, if wanted, go in ~/.desktop. I currently have ...
> $ cat ~/.desktop
> DESKTOP=Plasma
>
> Regards, Dave Hodgins

snipped thanks Dave
--
faeychild
Running plasmashell 5.20.4 on 5.10.78-desktop-1.mga8 kernel.
Mageia release 8 (Official) for x86_64 installed via Mageia-8-x86_64-DVD.iso

On 13/11/2021 16:22, Grimble wrote:
> On 30/10/2021 22:14, faeychild wrote:
>> On 30/10/21 01:58, Grimble wrote:
>>
>>> Dave, the video device is reported by lspci as
>>> AMD/ATI Cedar RADEON HD 5400/6300/7300 Series.
>>> drakx11 only gives me the option RADEON HD 5000 to HD6300 to give a
>>> "working" test. If I select VESA, vesa or the other RADEON HD5000
>>> entry, it gives me an EE error.
>>> /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old contains no error messages (ie the Too slow
>>> messages have gone)
>>> /var/log/Xorg.0.log is empty
>>>
>>> (Other errors reported earlier were corrected with minor changes to
>>> permissions/ownership)
>>>
>>
>>
>> Can you boot a live version of the OS
>> That would isolate the faults to your configuration somewhere
>>    My version is much as yours except for the Nvidia driver
> Thank you for the suggestion. I have now got around to booting the live
> version, with no apparent problems.
> So I am no further forward in working out why the boot process doesn't
> end up with a log-on screen. Live version works, System Rescue works,
> startx as root works from level 3;
> Do I actually have a Display (Window) Manager defined for my userid?
> Presumably they are listed per user; where?
>
Working through your suggestions (thank you for all your inputs)
1. There are no files in ~ that are not owned by me.
2. cat /etc/sysconfig/desktop gives DISPLAYMANAGER=sddm
3. After booting to level 3 and logging on as me, I can su - guest.
startx now sets up a standard user session! From there I can su - graeme
and reach a recognizable version of my usual environment but without my
personalisation. !!!!!!!!
Question: /usr/share/X11/dm.d contains entries for sddm.conf, gdm.conf
and xdm.conf. If I give the gdm.conf a lower number than sddm.conf, will
the system attempt to load the Gnome dm?

--
Grimble
Machine 'Haydn' running Plasma 5.20.4 on 5.10.78-desktop-1.mga8 kernel.
Mageia release 8 (Official) for x86_64

On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 16:17:01 +0000, Grimble wrote:
> On 13/11/2021 16:22, Grimble wrote:
>> On 30/10/2021 22:14, faeychild wrote:
>>> On 30/10/21 01:58, Grimble wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dave, the video device is reported by lspci as
>>>> AMD/ATI Cedar RADEON HD 5400/6300/7300 Series.
>>>> drakx11 only gives me the option RADEON HD 5000 to HD6300 to give a
>>>> "working" test. If I select VESA, vesa or the other RADEON HD5000
>>>> entry, it gives me an EE error.
>>>> /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old contains no error messages (ie the Too slow
>>>> messages have gone)
>>>> /var/log/Xorg.0.log is empty
>>>>
>>>> (Other errors reported earlier were corrected with minor changes to
>>>> permissions/ownership)
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Can you boot a live version of the OS
>>> That would isolate the faults to your configuration somewhere
>>>    My version is much as yours except for the Nvidia driver
>> Thank you for the suggestion. I have now got around to booting the live
>> version, with no apparent problems.
>> So I am no further forward in working out why the boot process doesn't
>> end up with a log-on screen. Live version works, System Rescue works,
>> startx as root works from level 3;
>> Do I actually have a Display (Window) Manager defined for my userid?
>> Presumably they are listed per user; where?
>>
> Working through your suggestions (thank you for all your inputs)
> 1. There are no files in ~ that are not owned by me.
> 2. cat /etc/sysconfig/desktop gives DISPLAYMANAGER=sddm
> 3. After booting to level 3 and logging on as me, I can su - guest.
> startx now sets up a standard user session! From there I can su - graeme
> and reach a recognizable version of my usual environment but without my
> personalisation. !!!!!!!!
> Question: /usr/share/X11/dm.d contains entries for sddm.conf, gdm.conf
> and xdm.conf. If I give the gdm.conf a lower number than sddm.conf, will
> the system attempt to load the Gnome dm?

I will recommend using MCC to set desired settings.
Next X update would wipe out your new numbering scheme.

On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 11:17:01 -0500, Grimble <grimble@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
> Working through your suggestions (thank you for all your inputs)
> 1. There are no files in ~ that are not owned by me.
> 2. cat /etc/sysconfig/desktop gives DISPLAYMANAGER=sddm
> 3. After booting to level 3 and logging on as me, I can su - guest.
> startx now sets up a standard user session! From there I can su - graeme
> and reach a recognizable version of my usual environment but without my
> personalisation. !!!!!!!!
> Question: /usr/share/X11/dm.d contains entries for sddm.conf, gdm.conf
> and xdm.conf. If I give the gdm.conf a lower number than sddm.conf, will
> the system attempt to load the Gnome dm?

Using mcc/boot/Setup display manager, it will allow you to select which of the
installed display managers to use. update the DISPLAYMANAGER variable in
/etc/sysconfig/desktop. That variable controls which dm is used for run level 5
logins (aka graphical.target).

The display managers available for installation are gdm, lightdm, lxdm, sddm, and
xdm.

Given that you can startx as another user, that makes it clear the problem is in
some config file in /home/$user for the regular user.

Digging through those files to try and figure out what's wrong is very difficult
with modern desktop environments.

In a case like that my recommendation is to boot to run level 3, login as root,
mv /home/normaluser /home/normaluser.old
cp -r /etc/skel /home/normaluser
chown -Rc normaluser:normaluser /home/normaluser

Logout, then in as the normaluser, startx to get to a working desktop. Re-apply
the desired configuration changes using the gui, and mv the data files/directories
from /home/normaluser.old to /home/normaluser

It's a bit of a pain. You must move the .mozilla, and .thunderbird directories
before running either firefox or thunderbird or it will use new subdirectories
with different names, but it's a lot easier then digging through all of the
kde or gnome config files trying to figure out which one is no longer compatible.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

On 18/11/2021 19:36, David W. Hodgins wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 11:17:01 -0500, Grimble <grimble@nomail.afraid.org>
> wrote:
<snip>
> In a case like that my recommendation is to boot to run level 3, login
> as root,
>  mv /home/normaluser /home/normaluser.old
>  cp -r /etc/skel /home/normaluser
>  chown -Rc normaluser:normaluser /home/normaluser
>
> Logout, then in as the normaluser, startx to get to a working desktop.
> Re-apply
> the desired configuration changes using the gui, and mv the data
> files/directories
> from /home/normaluser.old to /home/normaluser
>
> It's a bit of a pain. You must move the .mozilla, and .thunderbird
> directories
> before running either firefox or thunderbird or it will use new
> subdirectories
> with different names, but it's a lot easier then digging through all of the
> kde or gnome config files trying to figure out which one is no longer
> compatible.
>
> Regards, Dave Hodgins
Well, thanks to your tip Dave, I'm back with a working (user) GUI. I'll
leave working through the many <dot> directories for another day.
Thanks to all for your support/interest.

--
Grimble
Registered Linux User #450547
Machine 'Bach' running Plasma 5.20.4 on 5.10.78-desktop-1.mga8 kernel.
Mageia release 8 (Official) for x86_64

On 25/11/21 04:00, Grimble wrote:

> Well, thanks to your tip Dave, I'm back with a working (user) GUI. I'll
> leave working through the many <dot> directories for another day.
> Thanks to all for your support/interest.
>

Not to worry!!

Mageia 9 will eventually along before you know it, and save the day.

It has happened to me :-)

regards

--
faeychild
Running plasmashell 5.20.4 on 5.10.78-desktop-1.mga8 kernel.
Mageia release 8 (Official) for x86_64 installed via Mageia-8-x86_64-DVD.iso